Ellie, a female scholar in the Victorian era who is no stranger to having to fight for her rights to education and knows she will never be taken seriously or creditied for any of the work she does in her chosen feild because of her gender finds herself being let go from her job after a pesky little misunderstanding with authories surrounding some chains and the houses of Parliament at a suffragette demonstration. Whilst awaiting her impending termination she finds a map & talisman of some sort to a lost city in her bosses office and decides to liberate said items and sneaks away to see where this map takes her running into various roadblocks and foes along the way. Luckily, she crosses paths with Adam, a charming guide and adventurer who agrees to help her on her quest, but as they embark on their adventure, their enemies continue to hunt them down at every turn. 

This was a super fun way to kick-start my 2025 reading. This book is marketed as being the perfect read for fans of the 1999 film The Mummy, and that description is spot on. This also gave me Indiana Jones & Jungle Cruise vibes throughout. I'm not usually one for historical stories, but I enjoyed it here. There was some good banter between Ellie & Adam throughout, and the plot itself was constantly moving forward and action-packed. However given that there wasn’t really a lull in the action, this book still felt overly long to me and somehow dragged in places which I know makes zero sense, but that is why it hasn't reached a full five star rating for me. There is a very light dusting of romance between the MCs, and that is definitely a subplot, and the action/adventure is the main focus of the story. I listened to this on Everand and it was my first book by this author and my first book narrated by Alex Picard, she did a phenomenal job and I will absolutely be listening to more of her in the future.