Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

"A very long time ago a woman called Dorothea Brande wrote a book about writing and in it, she said: "The influence of any widely read book can hardly be overestimated. If it is sensational, or shoddy, or vulgar, our lives are the poorer for the cheap ideals which it sets in circulation; if, as so rarely happens, it is a thoroughly good book, honestly conceived and honestly executed, we are all indebted to it." (Today, she would say that about our cheap and shoddy movies.) I think in time, we might very well become indebted to The Secret Magdalene. I think it has set in motion honestly conceived and honestly executed ideas about Gnosis, as well as the Goddess we all seek, and whose lack has long been lamented. Mary Magdalene is that Goddess, and this book opens us to both a true feeling for the Magdalene, but also for Gnosis, or "knowing." And I'm not the only one who's beginning to see this. Not only has Timothy Freke, who co-wrote The Jesus Mysteries and Jesus and The Lost Goddess, listed The Secret Magdalene first in his wonderful new website's reference section under "Books to Read," and given it a glowing review, and not only has it been endorsed by magdalene.org, the largest and oldest website devoted solely to the Magdalene, but Earl Doherty has written what he calls a triptych of a review of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, Robert M. Price's Da Vinci Fraud, and The Secret Magdalene on his own website: The Jesus Puzzle. In Doherty's review, he says: "One feels the stone streets of Jerusalem beneath one's feet, one breathes the dust of the scrubby Judean wilderness; the close air and beating sun by the stinking salt sea of inland Palestine clog the reader's pores. The great city of Egyptian Alexandria, lazing on the broad breast of the Nile delta, sparkles not only in the Mediterranean sunlight, it is lit by the intellectual vibrancy of its philosophical schools, by the vast knowledge and artistic creativity collected within the walls of the ancients' greatest library. Within this world of sand, sea and parchment moves Longfellow's heroine who has caught the imagination of so many who have come to know her. But however magical an achievement is the creation of Longfellow's atmosphere of the ancient world, it is almost eclipsed by the book's intellectual and emotional landscape. It is the richness of the characters and their minds and feelings that dominate this novel. But even this operates on two levels, a microcosm and macrocosm, if you like. While the characters think and feel as individuals, it is through such as them that a new philosophy, a new way of looking at the world and the nature of humanity is emerging, and the novel conveys that broader sense." "All the characters, even the secondary ones, are drawn with depth and sensitivity. It may not be too much to say that Mariamne herself is one of the most perfectly crafted figures in modern fiction, which makes it no surprise that so many readers have taken to her so emotionally. She will no doubt eclipse all other representations of Mary Magdalene for some time." I wholeheartedly agree. I'm sure Dorothea Brande would agree too.