The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman

Mousy Nora can’t believe her luck when super cute Chris and his equally shiny girlfriend Adriane adopt her into their exclusive circle at Chapman prep. Even though she sometimes feels like a third wheel, it’s worth it to be able to call Chris her best friend. Then after graduation, Chris scores a cool after school job for them at his nearby college: using their mad Latin skillz to help a crabby old professor translate a coded book known as the Voynich Manuscript that supposedly holds the secrets to the universe if they can decipher it’s “incomprehensible symbols…broken only by elaborate illustrations of flowers and animals and astronomical phenomena that apparently have no counterpart in the real world.” Chris and Chris’s roommate Max work on The Book while Nora tries her hand at translating the accompanying letters of Elizabeth Weston, whose stepfather was an alchemist who claimed to have broken the code. As the long nights of translating commence, Nora finds herself falling for quiet, shy Max, whose geeky love of Latin and history matches her own, and soon the two are as lip locked as Chris and Adriane. But when Nora takes one of Elizabeth’s letters from the professor’s office without permission, she accidentally sets into motion a chain of events that ends in the horrific murder of one of her closest friends, and the ultimate betrayal of another. Nora has unwittingly unlocked a dark door to the past that now opened, will not be closed until someone–maybe even herself–has paid in blood. If you are a fan of The Da Vinci Code or the archeological adventures of Indiana Jones, then you are going to absolutely relish Robin Wasserman’s supernatural, theological thriller. I am especially fond of one of the novel’s most climactic moments that reminded me of this super scary & super grody (at least when I was a litte kid) movie scene. And I’m not the only one who says so—the fantabulous Libba Bray raves about the book on her blog along with a very entertaining interview with it’s smart, funny author. So what are you waiting for? Beat a path to your nearest library, bookstore or e-reader and lay your hot little hands on a copy now!