A former journalist at the Irish News in the US has signed a seven-figure contract for a book based on her claim that she is the descendant of Jesus Christ and and Mary Magdalene.
The book, by former editor Kathleen McGowan, is to be marketed heavily on both sides of the Atlantic following the success of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, a novel that claims there are living descendants of Christ.
The American journalist worked as a senior editor at the Irish News and has written extensively on politics and the arts. She also worked for a while in Ireland.
She is now living in Los Angeles, where she signed a collective seven-figure deal with Simon & Schuster in the UK and Touchstone in the US.
The book, The Expected One, is to be released in the US this week with a print run of 250,000.
It also claims Mary Magdalene was first married to John The Baptist. However, McGowan has yet to reveal the source of the claim, saying only that it came from someone who is "fanatically" devoted to keeping the true story of Mary Magdalene alive.
McGowan, who is married to Irish-born musician Peter McGowan, claims in her book that she is a direct descendant of Mary Magdalene.
She says her lineage can be traced to France where the descendants of Mary Magdalene are alleged to have been raised, at least according to widely discredited claims in The Da Vinci Code.
In her book, McGowan changes her name to Maureen Pascal, but says in interviews that it is a lightly fictionalised version of her own story.
The book takes her from France to Jerusalem and she finds clues in the works of artists as diverse as Botticelli and Jean Cocteau. McGowan says she spent 20 years researching the Gospel of Mary Magdalene.
"Mary Magdalene's story is the greatest story never told," she said in a statement. "My interest in Mary Magdalene was sparked by my discovery that part of my family believes it is related to an ancient French lineage that traces its roots to her descendants. This link opened doors that have been closed to other writers and allowed me to do unique research on four continents."