Review: Prophecy of Days, #1 The Daykeeper's Grimoire - Christy Raedeke

Goodreads synopsis:
The story of Caity Mac Fireland, a girl from San Francisco whose parents drag her to an isle off the coast of Scotland to manage some family property. Caity finds that a Mayan relic is concealed there, intentionally left centuries ago by Mayan Daykeepers in an attempt to keep their profound knowledge about the year 2012 alive into the current era.

As she delves into this world of secret knowledge, Caity is helped along by a visiting family friend and Feng Shui master, Uncle Li; a Mayan elder named Bolon; and Mr. Papers, her pet monkey that communicates through origami. A handsome Scottish lad gets pulled into the intrigue, as do several other people with questionable motives and loyalties. Caity must weave together a tapestry of information in order to make her radical discovery, a mystery protected by an elite coterie of power-brokers who influence world events. Caity’s twenty-first century mind is put to the test as she tries to uncover the answer to an ancient riddle while trying to outwit this powerful group that will stop at nothing to control the secret, and her.
 

Review:
I had really high hopes for this book.  This is Christy Raedeke's debut YA novel and at first glance it looks to be extremely promising.  It's centred around a mystery involving the discovery of a prophecy linked to the Mayan calendar and the saviour of humanity.  So far, so good.  I like books which get me thinking, I'm all for a good mystery and the first few chapters were intriguing but it just seemed to go downhill from there.  I felt like the premise of the plot was potentially brilliant but the execution wasn't so good.  I found it flat with quite one-dimensional characters that didn't leap off the page at me.  I like books where I can be completely transported out of real life but instead of feeling like a pleasure, reading this was more like hard work.

There were some strange inclusions as well. I mean, a pet monkey that can communicate through origami!  That's just too weird for me!

I got about a third of the way through this and then lost interest completely but I hate giving up on a book so I did persevere with the hope that it might get better.  Sadly it didn't.  It's such a shame because this is the first book in the series and I really thought it was going to have me hooked but in my opinion, fell a long way short.