Kindle Edition Amazon Category:  Action/Thriller Publisher: Trafford Publishing ISBN-10:  1466915595 Type: Fiction Pages: 305 Copyright: February 28 2012 ISBN-13: 9781466915596 When a colleague of archaeologists Jake Lalonde and Angeline Lisbon is found dead amidst ghostly sightings and and murderous cult activity, the clues lead to a Raven-worshipping goddess cult in the subterranean Mithraic temples of Rome.  Haida archaeologist Jake Lalonde dreams the same dreams as his ancestors, and his profession has taken him to strange and fascinating places before. When a the corpse of a colleague and friend, Vincent Carpello, appears in the back of a freight truck, however—his stiff hands miming the form of a raven rattle—Jake's thirst for adventure sets him on a dangerous journey that may just be his last. At the University of Washington a team of researchers that include Jake's fiancee, Angeline Lisbon, know that Jake's now deceased colleague, Vincent Carpello, was on the cusp of a major discovery that had the potential to turn the world upside down. But when a Venus statue is stolen, Jake goes missing, and a cypher disappears, Angeline sets out to find Jake—Interpol's number one suspect. Tracked by a dubious Interpol agent, Angeline follows the clues that soon lead her to a raven-worshipping goddess cult in the subterranean Mithraic temples of Rome. Excerpt CHAPTER ONE September 23, 2010 Hilazon Tachtit, Northern Israel Jake Lalonde groaned, massaging a pain in his neck that had awakened him. He had slept badly. He had spent the night on the edge between sleep and wakefulness, leaving him questioning if he had slept at all. The camp was up and the crew were fixing breakfast. Some were packing their belongings, preparing for their ascent up the mountain. Jake discarded the jagged rock he was lying on and shrugged off the pain. Then he stuffed his backpack with his things. He watched the expedition leader give orders to make haste. She wanted to reach the cave by tomorrow afternoon. Her body swayed as she moved, directing preparations. She was fluid, almost ethereal about her movements. There was something odd about Sophia Saveriano, something that drew him to her. It was not anything sexual or emotional, or even intellectual...nor anything as simple as curiosity. It was more powerful than that. Like something touched him deeply, lowered him to the very basis of his core. The lowest primitive feeling that existed, the level of pure sensation. He felt solid in her presence. That was the only way he could describe it. “We must leave now!” she shouted. “Anyone who is not ready will have to catch up on their own.” The expedition started off, cheerfully, along an old goat track peppered with dried dung. The younger members of the crew laughed and told jokes to kill the time. The local guides, surly but polite smiled under their kerchiefs smug in their knowledge of the terrain’s peculiar dangers. The hours passed, and single file they climbed rock and scree, mostly silent now. The sun arced into the sky, the light filtered by a grey mist. The trek was difficult. Jake’s feet flung dust onto the back of his jeans, while dark splotches of sweat soaked the armpits of his shirt. Hours later when they stopped, Jake pushed past the grumbling hikers to learn the cause, and saw that two objects poked sharply from the hard earth. The object nearest was the tip of some large bird’s wing and beside it lay a severed foot. The bird might have been an eagle, a hawk or a raven, but the foot was human, rotted away to clean bone, whitened by the sun. “Witch,” the peasant boy standing beside him spat. Dust flaked off Jake’s lips as he eased his camera bag to the ground. “Why do you think the bones belong to a witch?” The boy went silent. “We’ll make camp here,” Saveriano said. The sky was red, the grey mist had settled on the outer rim of the valley. Jake dropped his pack and settled his camera bag to the ground, walked to the ridge of the hillside and surveyed the landscape. The air was warm and reeked with the roasted scent of animal waste. Downwind breathing was easier, and he gazed across the hills to rusty pockets of land, speckled with sparse, green scrub and raw, white stone. When he turned back some sort of stew made of goat meat was ready for dinner. Its piquant aroma evaporated into his nostrils, the flavour strong and exotic. After they ate it was dark, and most of the crew turned in. Jake was restless. He took a flashlight and walked back to where they had seen the bones. He sensed eyes on his back, and he half-hoped Saveriano planned to join him. She was strangely uncommunicative and he had questions for her, many questions. But it seemed the time was never right, and she kept her distance. It was the boy who watched him. Jake lifted a stick and casually dragged it over the ground. He stopped when he caught sight of one of the crew hunched over the bones in the moonlight. The young man rose, smiled sheepishly. “Weird, eh? But then the locals are pretty superstitious. Well, guess I’ll turn in.” He shoved his fist into the pocket of his cargo pants and left. Jake squatted to get a closer look. A star was scored into the earth around the bones where no such marking had existed earlier. It resembled the Star of David or Satan’s star, but it was neither. He had seen this symbol before. The spicules of each point, radiating from a perfect circle, showed the acute angles of an arrow. He glanced around. Hmmm, that was odd. The boy had disappeared and the young man who had just left was zipping something into a plastic bag. Jake dropped his gaze to the ground, felt a sudden need to touch base with Vincent. He had agreed to see the mountain caves of Hilazon Tachtit with him, but where was he? Vincent had left word that they should meet in town, but when he failed to show up the expedition had left without him. Was he already at the caves? Jake sent a text, then lifted his lightweight digital videocam, and aimed it downward. He raised his eyes over the camera toward the camp and saw Saveriano staring at him; he switched his attention to the star, and then to the bones that lay in its centre. He pried out a toe bone and examined it. Surely, the bones were archaeological? But their presence was chilling. The ankle had been cleanly axed. Before turning in, he checked his cell phone for messages. Nothing. He went back to the camp and stopped in front of the expedition leader who had watched his approach. “Vincent never told you where he was going before he was due to join you here?” “No,” she said. “He did not. I assume something came up.” “Shouldn’t he have left a message with someone? He asked me specifically to join him.” “Then that is his problem, and yours. Not mine. Vincent and I are simply colleagues who happen to be interested in the same thing—at the moment. We agreed that whoever reached the cave first would take possession of its prize. It is not my concern that he has forfeited the race.” “I was unaware there was a race.” “A figure of speech Dr. Lalonde. A figure of speech.” That night Jake tossed and turned. It wasn’t the lumpy ground that had him awake. He’d slept on worse. No, it wasn’t the ground. It was the dream. Half awake, half asleep; whispered words, surreal visions; a high-pitched whine in his head. What was happening to him? It was as though he were dreaming someone else’s dream, like the dream had been transposed from a stranger’s mind into his own. A dark taste persisted on his tongue. The smell of mould lingered, cupped in the cavities of his sinuses. Was he hallucinating? Or were the sensations the after effects of a rather noxious goat stew? An aura, a scintillating stream waxed out of the shadows of the mountainside, and flowed in a multi-coloured chaos around his ankles. Jake almost shot out of his sleeping bag. But he knew he was asleep, his muscles paralysed, eyes deeply shut, only his thoughts had any life. This is it then. I must follow her to the sleep of death. Jake felt himself in the dream, a dream where his eyes and mouth were wide open and his body separated from his mind, and he had no will but to lie back and watch. The shimmering circled his throat. His hands flew up to stop it, but there was no quitting now. It swelled and sucked and surged, lifting a jagged piece of sculpture into the air. He saw the familiar symbols, recognized the frieze—the slim fragment he had stolen from the cave. It plunged like a living knife toward him. Heart hammering against his ribs, sweat pouring like hot oil down his neck to his spine, the aura pulsated around him. His vision was dimming, his hearing gone. Arms numb, tongue thick, legs useless as butchered meat. Only his brain remained clear, a severed link to the reality that was somewhere out there. Nausea began to rise and a pain exploded in his gut. Shock and horror, understanding struck him at last. She had lied. Lied! He was not the one. He was going to die, and that was all. He fell over backwards, hands raised, his final thought: “Whatever you do, do not listen to her.... To the lies.” Jake sat up in a cold sweat.

Live to Read
Bodies, blood, and mystery. Raven's Blood takes readers on a fantastic journey with archaeologists and main characters Angeline Lisbon and Jake Lalonde. Angeline must rescue her fiancé, Jake, who has disappeared and is suspected of murdering a colleague. I loved this book despite not reading the first three in the series. Cannon fills her readers in and does not leave them wanting for adventure or great characters.
If there is any justice in the world, this series will be made into movies. The entire time I read this novel, I was imaging the scenes taking place in my mind. This is the type of book where you can't help doing that.
Readers who love mystery and mysticism will love Cannon's books. The detail she puts into her work shows and adds to the reading experience. Every book is set in new, exotic locations loaded with history and intrigue. Anyone could love this series.

Mystic Twists and Turns, Thrills and Chills, a Real Winner
Part four in this Raven Chronicles series takes the reader to ancient underground passageways in an attempted revival of an ancient dark Mithra cult. Jake Lalonde, half-Haida archaeologist is seeking his own truth of his heredity as a shaman and is caught up in a deadly fight for his survival. He is off the radar as far as his fiancé Angeline is concerned, and concerned she is. She is preparing to go to Europe to find him, his last known whereabouts place him in Rome. She is not aware of the other two people who are following her. Her deep knowledge and perception, of Jake, plus her gut instinct, says he is in trouble. A morbid discovery is found in Israel, when the body of the man Jake is to meet in Rome shows up in the truck that has arrived from Italy to take an iconic statue found at the site in Israel to Rome.

Deborah Cannon has gone deeper than ever in her latest book, mystic, full of twists and turns in plot, labyrinths, hallucinogenic mushrooms, visions, paranormal, Mithraic Mysteries, thrills and chills, if you like unusual mysteries you've found the right book! The action clings to the rails at full-speed. The characters are strong and unique. Deborah's previous books in the series have taken the reader to Tonga, the San Juan Islands in the US, and Haida Gwaii in Canada.

What Angeline learns when she finds Jake terrifies her. He is not himself, and appears to be spellbound by Sophia Saveriano, an archaeologist earlier laughed out of the academic community and now bent on proving her theories with Jake's assistance, but she is unlike anyone Angeline has ever met and seems ethereal. Who or what is she? She is everywhere and nowhere, she's like a will-o'-the-wisp. Who is the man from "Interpol" who followed Angeline and keeps turning up in strange places? What is happening to young men in Rome who disappear? Are the gruesome discoveries related?

The author has outdone herself in a story I couldn't put down. A great read. For anyone interested in Haida lore, ancient mysterious cults, the paranormal and thrillers, this book is for you. I was enthralled from beginning to end. A real winner! - Betty Gelean

Raven's Blood
Jake Lalonde has an intimate connection to his ancestors. Despite his lack of traditional training, he has had shamanic-like experience where he is transported to the time of his ancestors. Indeed, he actually becomes his ancestor. Captivated, Jake is drawn to the symbol of the Raven.

Evidentially, Jake is not the only one interested in this symbolism. His archaeological rival Vincent has made the discovery of the century. Yet, before he can present his findings, he is murdered in the most mysterious way. All signs lead to Jake but there is something far more dangerous at work here.

Raven’s Blood meshes archaeology, mythology, native spirituality, and adventure into a very entertaining package. Loved the premise. - Tami Brady, TCM Reviews