Please join me in welcoming author Author Gigi Pandian who is on

on Tour from April 20-29 with

Quicksand: A Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery

Release date: March 10, 2015

at Henery Press

280 pages ISBN: 9781941962275

Author’s website | Goodreads

About the book:

A thousand-year-old secret room. A sultan’s stolen treasure. A missing French priest. And an invitation to Paris to rekindle an old flame…

Historian Jaya Jones finds herself on the wrong side of the law during an art heist at the Louvre. To redeem herself, she follows clues from an illuminated manuscript that lead from the cobblestone streets of Paris to the quicksand-surrounded fortress of Mont Saint-Michel. With the help of enigmatic Lane Peters and a 90-year-old stage magician, Jaya delves into France’s colonial past in India to clear her name and catch a killer.

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As I started reading Quicksand by Gigi Pandian, I was somehow reminded of the beginning of the song Que Sera Sera, mostly because when I was a little girl I wanted to be a globe-trotting historian who solved mysteries and was the female version of Indiana Jones. While I became something else when I grew up, I still get to live out my fantasies through books and even though I had not read the two previous books in the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery series, I was able to read and enjoy this book on its own. If you like quirky characters, solving mysteries and a touch of romance, then you’re going to want to read this book.

Settled in San Francisco and hoping on the tenure track at a local university, historian Jaya Jones knows she should be happy but she still feels as if something is missing. When a letter with first class ticket to Paris arrives from Lane Peters, a somewhat recent fling, she’s not sure if she should go but lets her friends, and her boss, talk her into going for “research” purposes. Only when she arrives in Paris things are worse than she could have imagined and she finds herself being blackmailed into helping commit a crime.

Ms. Pandian does a good job developing her characters throughout the story; I easily connected with Jaya and found her smart, funny and adventuresome, which can sometimes lead to trouble. The secondary characters were also well developed and I found Jaya’s friends colorful and a good fit for her intellect and personality (one even plays a Sitar, though she states he does it badly). While I liked Lane Peters character, and the touch of romance was nice, his past led to all sorts of issues (hello blackmail!) and I’m not sure he’ll ever be able to walk away from it.

The two mysteries were well developed and took plenty of twists and turns and kept things interesting. The story’s pace was good and there was plenty of action, both verbally and physically. The villains were colorful and added just the right amount of tension to the story. I enjoyed reading Jaya’s exploits as she stumbles across clues and discoveries while trying to make sure she and Lane come out of this adventure alive and free from the police.

Will Jaya uncover the mystery behind the stolen item? Will she make an important archeological discovery at the same time? You’ll have to read Quicksand to find out, I enjoyed it and plan to go back and read the previous books, Artifact and Pirate Vishnu to see what other adventures Jaya has gotten into.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 Crowns

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

USA Today bestselling author Gigi Pandian is the child of cultural anthropologists from New Mexico and the southern tip of India. After being dragged around the world during her childhood, she tried to escape her fate when she left a PhD program for art school.

But adventurous academics wouldn’t stay out of her head. Thus was born the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery Series (Artifact, Pirate Vishnu, and Quicksand). Gigi’s debut mystery novel was awarded a Malice Domestic Grant and named a “Best of 2012” Debut Novel by Suspense Magazine.

Her short fiction has been short-listed for Agatha and Macavity awards, and she also writes the new Accidental Alchemist mystery series. She takes photos of gargoyles wherever she goes, and posts them on her Gargoyle Girl blog.

Visit her website.
Follow her on Facebook, Twitter
Subscribe to her newsletter
Visit her Gargoyle photography blog: http://www.gargoylegirl.com

Buy the book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Itunes | Google Play

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You can enter the global giveaway here or on any other book blogs participating in this tour.

Be sure to follow each participant on Twitter/Facebook, they are listed in the entry form below.

Entry -Form

Visit each blogger on the tour: tweeting about the giveaway everyday of the Tour will give you 5 extra entries each time! [just follow the directions on the entry-form] Global giveaway open internationally: 1 winner will receive a print copy of the 3 books in the

Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mysteries Series