All I wanted was a Dan Brown-style, guilty pleasure historical mystery. I got that, fine, and it did actually get interesting after the first clue, but this book also had completely irrelevant things like marriage drama?? And the main character’s kid dying?? And he cheated on his wife but she forgave him?? I couldn’t stop rolling my eyes at everything else.

How I would have improved it: take out the characters of Margarida and Constance completely, keep Lena but make it so our MC doesn’t cheat on his (now non-existent wife), have him take the money after being pressured but decide to publish his findings in a fiction book (like he already did) but it’ll be a few years after the events, when the guilt of sitting on The Historical Truth gets too much. Boom, fixed your book