this was a really unique mystery read, the characters were great and I really enjoyed going on this journey. It was a unique read in the mystery genre and I look forward to more from the author.

I loved this book and couldn’t put it down. The author wrote well and left me wanting to follow along with the characters straight into the next book. Can’t wait to find out what happens next.

This is a very good thriller. It's engaging with plenty of action and twists and with a great build to the end. The author also created interesting characters. Recommended.

Thanks very much for the review copy!!

My first book by N.J Croft and it was a winner! Exciting and thrilling, the Descartes Evolution kept me engaged from the start! I loved it!

Awesome book! Have stayed up way too late to finish it as I really could not put it down. Fast paced. Suspenseful. Thriller sci fi. I didn’t see the twists coming, although hindsight is 20/20 and perhaps I should have.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. Loved it and would thoroughly recommend it.

If you loved The DaVinci Code be prepared to be wowed again by The Descartes Evolution, which hides another secret several hundred years old.

Jenna’s physician father had always told her she must take her medicine to prevent the genetic disease she carries in her body from progressing. When he is killed, she turns to his partner to determine what is in the mysteriously unlabeled pill bottle. Jenna then gets a letter from her father that tells her to tell no one about her disease but a Dr. Merrick and to mention the word Descartes. Unfortunately, Dr. Merrick is out of town and events spiral quickly out of control. Jenna is forced to trust the mysterious Luke. Together, they seek the answer to both the treatment of her disease and a possibly worldwide syndicate planning a terrorist plot.

The Descartes Evolution is an exciting and dark look at what really might underlie the world order. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5 stars!

Thanks to Sideways Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

This book had a tremendous amount of potential that it completely failed to live up to. There was a compelling plot, the writing was good (in terms of the prose) and the concept was unique. Frankly, these elements were so good that it makes the book's shortcomings even more disappointing.

In very broad terms, the story, scenes and characters were completely two-dimensional. The depth was more suitable to a graphic novel. It wasn't until nearly halfway through that I felt any connection with the two main characters, and even then it was lukewarm at best. Absolutely nothing was fleshed out - characters, backstory, scenes... nothing. In fact, I am hard-pressed to think of a single detail contained in the novel. An apt analogy is a beautiful house with nothing in it. That's a house, not a home.

I'll conclude with a few specific examples.... Other than joining it because he was upset about his father, what exactly did Luke do in the French Foreign Legion. Except meet Callum during the one event that wasn't even described. How did Luke come to marry Callum's sister? Other than dying, was there any point to her life at all. What did Jenna do for the first 23 years of her life and how and why did she end up working in a museum? Did she go to university? Did she have any sort of relationship (at all) other than anonymous sexual encounters? What was the point of making her father gay? Where did Lauren come from? I read that she went to Cambridge. Why is she "evil", although she isn't particularly good at it. Why is Dr Smith evil? Where did he come from? Why? Seeing a theme here? I am not going to bother wondering why some completely unnecessary alien DNA found its way into the story.