The Sixth Key

Read The Sixth Key Storyline:

Long-listed for the prestigious Davitt and Ned Kelly Awards for Crime fiction this Amazon Best Seller is a brain-teasing conspiracy thriller for the adventurous reader. 'By the Power of these keys the Head of the Church will be made the Lord of Hell'In late 2012 a cryptic invitation leads a crime novelist to Venice's Island of the Dead. Seventy four years later a similar cryptic invitation brings Grail Historian Otto Rahn to an apartment in Berlin. What awaits him will change his life forever. What ensues is a hunt for Le Serpent Rouge, a notorious book of black magic written by a Pope, a book Himmler wants to add to Hitler's library. But there are others looking for the grimoire. A shadowy circle of men are watching Rahn's every move, and they will stop at nothing to possess the book and the legendary key that unlocks its terrifying power...a power that has the potential to effect the future. The Sixth Key has been described as a three dimensional game of chess with real characters, a time machine that will blow your mind and change the way you see the world and the impulses behind war forever.Review'Chilling, Thrilling, and Willing!' The Canberra Times'It had me hooked from the first page.' - Sisters in Crime'An Addictive Thriller' - Libri Blog'In the tradition of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, Adriana Koulias weaves a tale of esoteric intrigue in The Sixth Key.' - The Cairns Post'Koulias weaves an elegant plot that keeps you guessing until the last page.' 
 - Good Reading Magazine'Ms Koulias captures the attention of the reader with plot twists and good narrative tension. It is unpredictable to the very end.' - Letteratura & Cinema'...Richly dense, well constructed novel, with a dynamism and excitement that make the pages typically cinematic, sliding like the frames of an Indiana Jones film.' - Libri di Scriveri From the AuthorAUTHOR INTERVIEW:Who is your target audience?AK: I write books that I would read myself and I like complex mysteries, multi layered thrillers that are textured; books that need your full attention. My goal is to engage the reader and to have him or her participate in the imaginative process. I also love playing around with language and usually try to tailor it to the era of my story. So, I guess this means that those who are after a fast read don't usually 'get' my books. I suppose I write for people who like milieu and atmosphere, who love language and historical mysteries tinged with the supernatural and religious.What do you hope your readers will get out of your booksAK: I hope that at the end of reading my books my readers will have questions about the world we live in, about history and what we consider truth and fiction, because they have been given a different perspective.Is there more coming?AK: I am writing the fifth book in the series right now, making my Quartet  a Quintet: Ghost Club and the Devil's Alphabet is a story set in London in 1888 around two real historical characters George Albert Smith (the father of UK Cinema) and Douglas Blackburn (who invented short hand). They were both entertainers on the Brighton stage and are involved with mesmerism and hypnotism. They become entangled in a web of intrigue surrounding the death of a mutual friend when they stumbled unwittingly on a strange club that appears to be involved in the Jack the Ripper Murders. I'm having a lot of fun writing it!What makes your books unique/outstanding?AK: They are a series but they can be read in any order because they are only loosely woven together and so each book can stand alone. They interconnect like puzzle pieces. What is your writing process?AK: I work a 10 hour day. I have a rough sketch of what I'm going to write, the themes and characters and the plot and then I just write. After that I do a lot of editing and I end up with a multitude of drafts which eventually I hone into a book. I guess my books are narrative driven and that means I'm often surprised to find out things about my characters that I didn't know! How do you cope with criticism?AK: Well, that is very hard because we all love our work to be loved, but in truth it is unavoidable and it is even something you should be proud of! Yes! As writers we create concepts that may not fit with the concepts already living in the readers for various reasons. What writers should keep in mind is that if writing is to develop as an art then popularity can't be the focus. Writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Herman Hesse were ahead of their times and some of their books were terribly unpopular until the readers caught up with their work and then they were touted as geniuses. The truth is by the time a book becomes popular and is praised universally it is already outdated. That isn't to say that popularity isn't a great byproduct and a consolation! But it should not be the main focus of writing in my view. When I see a criticism that is very emotive, I realise that at least I have touched something in that person because I have been frustrated with a book myself, which many years later I have picked up and have found life changing! It is all in the standpoint. In fact, my favourite quote, given to me recently by a friend is from Lessing's introduction to "The Golden Notebook": Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty." I do believe that to be true. If a book bores you in your 40s and 50s you might have to wait until your next life! :)