As they continue their hunt for the scrolls-pursued by authorities and keepers of Cambodia’s cultural assets-they take on additional team members. But when the duo find themselves with blood on their hands, they flee Shanghai and escape to the jungle. At the behest of her manipulative mentor, Henry Simms, unappreciated 29-year-old Irene Blum quits her job at Seattle’s Brooke Museum and heads to Shanghai to persuade scholar-turned-revolutionary Simone Merlin to join her on a quest to locate 10 ancient Khmer scrolls, which discovery would allow Irene to open her own museum and finally get credit for her work and expertise.
Since I can't objectively review my own book - I love it too much :) - I'd like to share the "Publishers Weekly" review of it: "Fay’s debut novel is a thrilling mix of adventure and personal discovery set in Southeast Asia in the 1920s.
As Irene and her fellow adventurers travel into the humidity-soaked jungle, little do they know that what they eventually bring to light will do more than change history … It will ultimately solve the mysteries of their own lives. Set against a backdrop of colonialism, revolutionary politics and the ruthless art world of the early 1900s, The Map of Lost Memories takes readers on a seductive journey into a forgotten era where nothing is as it seems. Even her own mentor, a notorious collector of stolen art, becomes suspect when Irene uncovers his connection to her companions. A drug-addled temple robber, Simone Merlin seems to take pleasure in complicating the expedition, while jaded nightclub owner Marc Rafferty reveals a troublesome childhood mysteriously entwined with Irene’s. And as she travels through Shanghai's lawless back streets and Saigon’s opium-filled lanes to reach the Cambodian jungle, she does not know who to trust. But she soon discovers that her quest to make the greatest archaeological discovery of the century is also a quest for the secrets of her family's own past. Seeking to restore her reputation, she sets off from Seattle in search of a temple believed to house the lost history of Cambodia’s ancient Khmer civilization. In 1925 the international treasure-hunting scene is a man’s world, and no one understands this better than Irene Blum, who is passed over for a coveted museum curatorship because she is a woman.
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