The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman

One review I read referred to it as "the DaVinci Code meets National Treasure" - cool right?  And it was, in parts, and then other parts just made me want to tear.my.hair.out.  The writing was very disjointed and at times hard to follow, and the historical letters interspersed throughout got to be too long and tedious.  I really liked the initial premise of the book but I felt it got lost in the narrative.  There were times when the author was overly descriptive (a la Elizabeth Weston's letters) and by the end,  she was flying through details to bring everything to a tidy close.  I know that I am in the minority...this book was *very* well reviewed by people in the know so it may just be a taste issue...that's why there is chocolate and vanilla.

Book Description

Publication Date: April 10, 2012

It was like a nightmare, but there was no waking up. When the night began, Nora had two best friends and an embarrassingly storybook one true love. When it ended, she had nothing but blood on her hands and an echoing scream that stopped only when the tranquilizers pierced her veins and left her in the merciful dark.

But the next morning, it was all still true: Chris was dead. His girlfriend Adriane, Nora's best friend, was catatonic. And Max, Nora's sweet, smart, soft-spoken Prince Charming, was gone. He was also—according to the police, according to her parents, according to everyone—a murderer.

Desperate to prove his innocence, Nora follows the trail of blood, no matter where it leads. It ultimately brings her to the ancient streets of Prague, where she is drawn into a dark web of secret societies and shadowy conspirators, all driven by a mad desire to possess something that might not even exist. For buried in a centuries-old manuscript is the secret to ultimate knowledge and communion with the divine; it is said that he who controls the Lumen Dei controls the world. Unbeknownst to her, Nora now holds the crucial key to unlocking its secrets. Her night of blood is just one piece in a puzzle that spans continents and centuries. Solving it may be the only way she can save her own life.