The Mounds Anomaly

Dr. Matt Howard thrives on anomalies—the finds that don't fit the rules and get quietly ignored. When a gold coin bearing a strange cuneiform mark surfaces from an old dig, it launches her into America's most controversial archaeology: the 'fraudulent' Michigan Mounds, a hidden Illinois cave of Mediterranean faces, and a shed full of forbidden artifacts. As colleagues turn hostile and her job hangs by a thread, Matt must decide what truth is worth—and whether her daughter matters more than any discovery.

• A sarcastic single-mom archaeologist takes on the establishment over America's most 'debunked' find.
• Fiction built on real, documented archaeological controversies—the author shows her sources in the notes.
• Adventure meets Book of Mormon-adjacent questions: did Old World peoples really reach ancient America?
• Indiana Jones energy with a middle-aged woman as the wisecracking hero.

“The desert consumed me and spit me out like the pit of a date.”

Perfect for an adult reader who loves fringe/alternative archaeology and pre-Columbian mysteries and enjoys a sardonic female narrator—with bonus appeal to Latter-day Saints intrigued by claims that support Book of Mormon-style Old World contact.