(I received this book as a gift.)
Alex Mubarak doesn’t want to be the person who can save Earth and all of humankind. She just wants her life to go back to normal. But a month after activating an ancient defensive system of pyramids to counteract a global assault by an alien virus, she and her friend Chris are not done with this problem.
Many people recovered from “The Great Infection” but not all, and some of those who survived have lingering physical issues. Shiners – those with the telltale luminous eyes of the infected, are still to be found despite the impact of the antivirus. Militarized teams sweep the countryside near Alex’s home, searching for the person who activated the virus countermeasures – but they’re not the normal military. The virus was only the beginning of what seems to be an unimaginably complicated and monstrous plot to conquer, pillage and annihilate the Earth and everyone on it.
Alex is forced into adulthood, with all its responsibilities and self-doubt, far too soon for her comfort. She seems destined to be caught up in a war with the Nephilim – the “fallen angels” of Biblical lore. The Nephilim apparently departed Earth millennia ago, but their followers, the Mudameere, have endured, awaiting their return. The Holocene Meteor shower and its accompanying virus predicted the return of the Mudameere’s masters. Only this time, the Nephilim will have no one to stop them – no one but Alex, who must plunge even deeper into humanity’s forgotten origins for some way to rid her world of this overwhelming menace.
Professor Hassan, her late father’s friend and member of the Khufu Bast, the ancient group opposing the Mudameere, hands Alex a plan of action, a destination and contact, and a possible way to fight the imminent invaders. All she has to do is run a precarious gauntlet of Nephilim minions in a world where travel is nearly impossible, and to deliver a small thumb drive containing all the Professor’s data and one precious capsule of mutation-proof antivirus before it’s too late.
“Heritage” is the next step in “The Forgotten Origins” trilogy. The characters continue to develop as the story unfolds. They pull us ever deeper into their psyches. Their story is about how necessity creates heroes, however reluctant they may be, and what it takes to step beyond one’s own instinct for survival for the sake of others.