From Publishers Weekly
Destiny propels an agnostic journalist to rediscover his faith in this intriguing paranormal puzzler about a mysterious bilocating lady in blue from bestseller Sierra (The Secret Supper). In 1629, Sister María Jesús de Ágreda appeared more than 500 times to the Jumano Indians of New Mexico and converted them to Christianity—without ever leaving her monastery in Spain. (The Inquisition suspected her of witchcraft.) In 1991, Spanish journalist Carlos Albert interviews Giuseppe Baldi, a Benedictine priest and musicologist about his 1972 Chronovision machine reported to recapture sounds as well as images from the past. (The Vatican censured Baldi.) Albert later stumbles on Ágreda's monastery in Spain, while in Los Angeles, Jennifer Narody, a former U.S. intelligence agent working on a secret project for the Vatican, deals with unusual dreams and receives a startling stolen religious text. Sierra's heady tale about a true flying nun should entertain Christian paranormal buffs, though some readers might have welcomed more about that Chronovision time machine. (June)
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Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
The Spanish novelist follows up his reimagining of da Vinci's most famous painting in The Secret Supper (2006) with this curious exploration of the legend of the Lady in Blue, a seventeenth-century nun who, while in a trance state, would (or so the story goes) appear to people far away. (It's called bilocationbeing in two places at the same time.) The novel focuses on a modern-day Spanish reporter, who, while investigating a story involving the shroud of Turin, discovers a convent founded centuries ago by the Lady in Blue. Intrigued by the legend and determined to find out the truth behind it, the reporter follows the trail to the U.S., where a woman with unique gifts might hold the answers to his questions. At once a paranormal thriller and an exploration of an enduring religious enigma, the novel is intellectually engaging and elegantly written. Fans of Sierra's previous novel should definitely read this one. Pitt, David


