"I'm beside myself, I can barely write thisthe design on my left hand is now extended up my wrist ..." So deepens the enigma of The Tattooed Map, a richly illustrated and thoroughly captivating first novel by Barbara Hodgson. Somewhere in Northern Africa, an intrepid traveler awakens with a mysterious mark on her hand that soon develops into a detailed, macabre map spreading across her skin. As Lydia's private journal entries unfoldcomplete with fold-out maps, photographs, drawings, and handwritten notesthe reader becomes as drawn into the conundrum of the tattooed map as Lydia herself. When Lydia disappears and her friend Christopher takes up her journal to record his search for her, the situation becomes even more puzzlinguntil the book's haunting resolution. In this unique novel, as engrossing to look at as it is to read, Hodgson has crafted a spine-tingling mystery that will make armchair adventurers want to embark upon their own journeysif only they could be sure of their return.