The Price of Gold by Alison Palmer

Alison Palmer has a knack for pulling a reader into a story and keeping their interest all the way through to the very last sentence. The Price of Gold is such a novel, and it kept me going page after page. Admittedly, I know very little of Egyptian mythology, but learned a great deal while reading The Price of Gold.

An engaging story of two teenagers, Cassie and Met, I felt drawn into Cassie's life more than I had anticipated. She is a very sympathetic character and one I wanted to understand better. Her ingenious way of staying alive, surviving against all odds, made her a loveable person, almost real . . . to me. I ached with Cassie, felt hunger with Cassie, and craved someone to care about me, as Cassie does throughout the story.

Met, the dominant male in The Price of Gold, is the descendant of the ancient Pharoahs and a fascinating example of an Egyptian legend in the flesh. His ability to change from human to bird form I found completely absorbed by, and his interest in Cassie, while bordering on stalking in the beginning, soon revealed something far more worthwhile . . . a budding romance and an eternal compassion for a beautiful girl who wanted nothing more than to be loved and respected, which Met does admirably.

While their relationship starts out a little rocky, mostly because Cassie doesn't seem to trust anyone (understandably so), it soon grows much stronger and steadier, until Cassie discovers Met's secret quite accidentally. Then, she is thrown into a nose dive, and is torn between wanting Met in her life and knowing she doesn't belong in his.

An intriguing tale from start to finish, I read the entire book twice before writing the review and found it equally as fascinating the second time through. Alison's strengths lie in POV, visualization and her keen ability to keep the reader's attention page after page.

While I enjoyed The Price of Gold, it has one serious flaw: it was not well-edited. There were numerous typo errors, which stopped the flow of the story, a problem which Alison will, hopefully, correct with future issues.