Book excerpt: 'Beware the desecration… Eirene… power of resurrection. She will take her revenge.' Following a mental breakdown, archaeologist Emma Carter convalesces in a rest home. Thoughts return to her childhood and to a windswept beach where she discovered a priceless gold artefact – an ugly gargoyle figure known as a Shiel Na Gig, representing a long forgotten deity from antiquity. She believes this is the source of her troubles as she reflects on events that have occurred over the past few months… Emma’s partner Sam Layton, a renowned psychic medium, is having problems of his own. Plagued by unsettling dreams that involve a Celtic warrior’s death and his love for Eirene, a slave girl who is set to be sacrificed to a sun deity, Sam witnesses the dying warrior burying a golden statuette on a beach. Not only do his dreams bother him, but he is suddenly called away to help his former lover Theia with problems concerning her companion Abi, whose erratic behaviour points to the supernatural… What is the mystery of the 'triumvirate' of Shiel Na Gig goddesses? Who or what will stop at nothing, including murder, to possess Sam and his friends? And will Sam be able to choose between his troubled relationship with Emma and the carefree time spent with Theia? The Golden Goddess is a fast-paced supernatural thriller that continues on from Nigel Plane’s first novel,The Daughters of Carrawburgh. Centred around Celtic deities, it is a gripping read that will appeal to fans of fantasy fiction.