by Kathleen McGowan

When walking through the airport last year sometime, I ran out of airplane activities (I’m somewhat limited these days) and found myself in an airport bookstore. Two books caught my eye: Labyrinth, by Kate Mosse and the Expected One, by Kathleen McGowan. Both appeared to be (in the little time I had to peruse) fictionalized accounts of historical/sacred traditions that I’d been studying, even pre-Da Vinci Code. And, for light plane reading, they seemed prime candidates. A little Da Vinci‘d out at the time, I bought & read Labyrinth.

Hated it. The front cover illustration should’ve clued me in to the fact that I would not like it. It got just about everything wrong and ended up being a sensationalist weird-death-cult thing.

I just got back to my list of “books I should read sometime” and walked home from the library with about 7, which I’m certain I won’t finish before they’re all due again. But The Expected One was one.

It is, apparently, the first book in a series, of which no others have yet been written. It is about the descendants of Mary Magdalene & Jesus. Bear with me. Where the Da Vinici Code served to piss off just about everyone, focusing mostly on the sensational search, Expected focuses on a different kind of search. The basic premise is similar: Mary and Jesus have descendants alive today, many of whom are part of a secret society and both are based on actual historical research (which they fictionalize). But that’s really where the similarities end.

McGowan focuses on the spiritual beliefs and changes/challenges to those beliefs of her characters. One is a lapsed Catholic (that may bias me toward liking it) who finds out she’s descended from MM&J. One of her really good friends is, too, and is doing a documentary about the descendants: including famous people and commoners, for want of a better word. The point she wants to convey is that there are millions, possibly billions of people who are heir to this legacy. Essentially, we’re all holy, or at least we may as well act like it.

The second powerful message, as far as I was concerned was of love & forgiveness. Due to plot twists that I won’t relay here, everyone has a chance to meditate on forgiving the people who have wronged them.

I look forward to the second installment. Even though liberties are taken with historical research, the ultimate message of the book is very healing. If more people acted like everyone was divine and more people forgave the people who wronged them, the world would be such a better place. Even if Jesus wasn’t married.