There have been times when I've started a book, then put it down because I get bored with it. This is not the case with "The Traitor's Child." A riveting read! Read the book, you won't be disappointed!

What a cracker! This one had me gripped and was unputdownable. The message behind it needs to be heard in this world. I highly recommend this book. The characters are well-drawn and believable and the story has pace. As other reviewers have said, this would make a great film.

This was an easy book to get into as the separate storylines were interesting and well written. I became more caught up in the story the further I read and had to stay up late to finish it because I wanted to know how it ended. Everything tied up well, although the last bit felt a bit like a sermon.

What a story! An amazing read which I found totally absorbing - didn’t want to put the book down but also didn’t want it to end! Well written & wonderfully gripping! In my opinion it’s up there with the best of them!
Looking forward to this author's next book!

Highly recommended to everyone who enjoys gritty, haunting novels in the style of Karen Maitland. Well written, fast paced, and delivered from an insider’s perspective, this is a book I enjoyed tremendously!

I picked this book up and started to read from start to finish without being able to put it down. It is such an exciting story that I was not able to stop. Very interesting historical views on the story of Jesus, his followers, a lost child and her story. Highly recommended and very exciting.

An interesting story, that could very well be true... I like the way the book is set up.. it moves from one character to another in such a way that enables you to get to "know" the character better... I found myself asking questions about the way back when days of regligion, It drew my interest into the beginnings of the church and how the "badness" within it has expanded over the years, slowly dissolving the goodness... In the end, my heart so wants what happened in the book to be true... Even though this is a fictional book I will take away from it, not only the fabulous story, but hope too... we do not see the whole or true story of history ever, so lets take the positive "stories" and run with them... :) Thanks Mark for a fabulous read, can't wait to start reading the other book I have on file of yours...

#TheTraitorsChild #NetGalley

I enjoyed the main story of this book but the religious part of it was a bit long winded for me. I don’t usually read religions thrillers. The other parts of the story were enjoyable but I found the scroll reading a bitlong and began to lose interest. I was more interested in Eric’s and Hannah’s stories.
I would read this author again but not a religious genre one.

The Traitor's Child is a great read. I couldn’t put it down.
It would make a great film and I very much look forward to this author's next book.

Struggled to finish this book purely on plot- the writing is great but I personally find a religious thriller to be hit or miss so its personal preference. Would read something else by author however, if in different genre.

Requested this based solely on the book cover. I read 60% of it in one sitting and I absolutely adored the first half. The second half took a bit of a different turn but still really enjoyable.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

As for the story honestly I wasnt a fan of this one. There were a few different stories going on and while they were related to each other is was not an exciting link in my opinion. We have the normal mistreatment of children in a religious orphanage, if you will, and an old uninteresting tale of religion. I honestly could have quit in the middle and not thought twice.
As for the writing that was good. It flowed between the story lines well and this probably just wasnt the book for me.

The Traitor's Child by Mark Townsend is my first experience with this author, but it is unlikely to be my last. He cleverly twines three different stories set in three different locations and time periods to craft a clever historical mystery that dates back to the foundation of the Catholic Church.
The book opens with seedy scene in a brothel in 1980's Amsterdam, the city that is the setting for much of the book. We are then introduced to Eric van Kroot, a native of the city who has returned to patch up his relationship with his brother, after a terrible falling out years before. The second thread of the story follows Eric's ancestor, a Jew who was forced to leave his home or convert at the time of the fall of Granada, while the third is that of a young girl in a Welsh orphanage run by some very cruel catholic nuns, Over the course of the book we learn how history shaped the lives and destinies of these characters, and how they are connected, largely while following Eric on a series of Indiana Jones like adventures as he uses his ancestor's diary to uncover a precious religious relic. The mystery is an engaging one, even if the ending does not come as a huge surprise, and as long as you are willing to suspend your disbelief and go where the story takes you, you are in for an entertaining time.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

This is a novel with 3 separate stories that after a while intertwine:
- a Jewish man around the time of the fall of Granada;
- an Irish girl in a orphanage run by nuns
- a Dutch guy looking for his daughter in the 1980ties.

It is obvious the writer does not like the church and does a kind of "Dan Brown". It grated as I am raised in a religious family and this felt as Christians bashing and I was wondering if he would have dared it with for instance Muslims. Do not get me wrong: it is fiction. But I would have liked it more if the people had been more diverse. I do agree that the Christian Church tenets from Saint Paul seem a bit different from Jesus his teachings. And exactly by being less sledge hammer this book good have been so much better. And as far as I know in the Bible Maria Magdalena is the sister of Martha and Lazarus and not of Judas.. (The writer is supposed to be a former vicar?)

I am Dutch: What was supposed to be Dutch (the junk) was gibberish. Another thing was that the Jewish man flees to Amsterdam. And yes in the 16th century many refugees came to Amsterdam because it was a safe heaven against religious persecution. But I think that wave of refugees was 40 years after the time the book is set..

The fact that a house in Spain is preserved for 5 centuries was also a bit much.

A page turner of a book that is a quick read but at times will challenge you. We are taken on a quest with Eric, the main character, as he attempts to unlock his family's history. The more he uncovers, the deeper the story goes. This novel is a good what if....and makes you look at the world a little bit differently. Some people will not agree and probably find this book heretical but please remember it is fiction.

I will admit I guessed this was going to be another of those books that were so popular a few years back - Dan Brown etc - where there's going to be a search for yet another secret about Jesus being married, not dying on the cross, fathering children... whatever etc.  Which were all a bit tedious, and not as "shocking" as they were perhaps meant to be.

Well, I was right, and I wasn't. Yes, there was a revelation (I won't say what it was), and - as always - it was the Catholic Church which was seeking to keep this under wraps, by dark and dastardly deeds. (Aside: why is it always the Roman Catholic church, and never the Anglicans? Are we too liberal to be shocked?) However, it was a better story than that, with family ties and betrayals making it more than just your ordinary Catholic Church versus Plucky Searcher of the Truth story. It was a quick read - started on Friday, finished Monday morning, but my measure of how interesting I find a book is is "Do I sit and read it over lunch"? And yes, I did - on Saturday and Sunday!

I very much liked the portrayal of what Jesus was like, and what he taught, and why he died: I liked the way Jesus's teaching was encapsulated, the characters from the time were well rounded and sympathetically described - even in a sketchy form. I really loved the phrase that Jesus "challenged the comfortable and comforted the challenged" - and this is going to become a sentence I get into as many sermons as possible!

On the whole the story was believable (to a point) and well told.

BUT it was let down, for me, on a couple of points.

1) EDITING - there were chapter headings in odd places, which shouldn't have been there. There were line breaks in strange places too which

cut the narrative a little and didn't

help the reader.

2) WRITING a) the author was a little too fond of the line "And then something happened" Which is pointless, as we are immediately told what happened. I noticed this, with irritation, at least twice, but who knows how many times it occured
b) (Maybe this is editing) It really annoyed me (Yes, I know I'm petty) that he wrote that it was somerthing verses something else. VERSUS with a U please! It's not poetry!!

c) I didn't get on with the phonetic spelling of some of one character's speech. It wasn't consistent, and I wasn't sure what region she was supposed to have come from.

d) This was the big one for me. I fully understand that we needed to see how our heroine was interested in the disciples of Jesus (I'm trying not to give away any plot spoilers here) and what happened to them. I understand that the Roman Catholic church needs to be the "villains" of the piece. I understand that cruelty was meted out to unmarried mothers and orphans by nuns and monks. But I felt that the nuns who controlled the orphanage were just too awful to be really believable. There were no redeeming features (except Sister Simon) to any of them, and then the fact that the church were conspiring against everyone and the web of influence spread across the world in the way described was just a bit too fanciful for me. It may be true, of course, and I'm just naive, but I couldn't quite get invested in that.

Sadly although it was a good book, and the conspiracy was certainly more "possible" than others I've read, I ended up with a feeling that the author has a real chip on his shoulder about the Roman Catholic church, and its perceived rigidity and beliefs.

Despite this though, I would happily give it 4 stars. Not five. A book has to be really good to get five stars!

I was really surprised by this book. It’s not the usual book I’d read but the story intrigued me and I’m happy I’ve decided to read it. The plot is strong and the characters very well developed and compelling. We can notice that the author has made a lot of research, to put together a very good mystery historical fiction. I’d definitely recommend this book.

Wow I read this in less than 24 hours! It's a quick read anyway but you do want to know what is going to happen, so hence couldn't put it down! I loved how at the beginning you are drip fed different parts of the story from different characters, which eventually all tie up. My only slight criticism is that I would have liked a little more detail, some parts are skimmed over (for example when Eric and Penelope go to the ancestors house). I would have liked to read more about the dangers they faced there. But aside from that, it's a great beach/lockdown read and would make a great BBC/Netflix serialisation.

Once you pick up this book you will not be able to put it down. The book starts with curious and innocent questions of a child who is not willing to believe that the followers of a God who is so kind and forgiving can be so cruel and so unlike the God himself. The child gets into trouble for asking questions. Very early in life she witnesses the hardships and hypocrisy of a world which seems so pious from outside. In other part of the world is a man digging the past of his family, completely unaware of the fact that he has a daughter who turns up dead when he finally finds her.

Future holds not only unearthing of several secrets related to lineage of the family but also something which threatens the basic foundation of entire christianity. It raises several questions on how Christianity has established its foundations on lies all over the world and to what extent it will go to protect their territory.

You will want to read the book in one sitting. Language of the book is easy and appealing to senses. Innocence in questions of a child, grief in voice of a father, anger, surprise and fear; all emotions combines in this masterpiece of a book.

Thank you NetGalley and John Hunt Publishing for the eARC.
This is a very interesting read and a lot of it takes place in Amsterdam, which I loved, having spent time there. It's set in several time lines and countries, with the main characters Eric and the daughter, Hannah, he's desperate to find. An ancient scroll is also being sought by Eric, a scroll the Catholic Church is desperate to keep secret.
It's a good mystery, thought provoking and obviously well researched. I loved Mark Townsend's final remarks and explanations, fascinating...
Definitely recommended.