"From the dusty shelves of the museum to the heat of the jungle, remarkably fresh and exciting!"
Reviewed by Heather Lobdell
Posted April 12, 2011
Romance Suspense | Romance Paranormal
Author Caridad Pineiro has created a jungle fantasy and a
story that I could not turn away from. Leaving all traces
of civilization behind and foraging the jungles of Mexico, I
found myself trudging through the trenches right beside the
team. Wonderfully written, AZTEC GOLD Gold is sure to bring
the adventure to life!
When Cynthia's boyfriend disappeared six months ago into
the jungles of Mexico, she stayed at the museum thinking
that she would never see him again. Now one treasure, one
map, has unlocked the keys to finding where Rafael and his
team were headed and where the treasure they were looking
for can be found.
Cyn has lived her life safe from the explorations and
adventures that killed both her parents. Until now. Can she
leave the safe confines of her office and search for the
piece of her heart that has been missing? One by one her
guides begin to disappear. One by one her team members seem
to be picked off, disappearing with screams in the night.
Can Cyn find Rafael or will this journey be the one she
doesn't survive?
Rafael ventured into the jungles to find a city of gold
never suspecting that the stories whispered by the
villagers could be true. Now he has lost his entire team
and his brother to the demon that guards the temple. Rafael
has been changed. He has learned not to yearn for the
people of his past. At least that is what his mind tells
him; his heart, now that is a different story. He never
should have left Cyn when she was mad. He should have let
her know just what she meant to him. Now fate has given him
another chance. But can Cyn accept Rafael as he is? Can he
protect her from that which has stolen his team, his
brother, and his identity?
A fascinating high-paced adventure that will have you
gripping your seat waiting for the next shoe to drop!
SUMMARY
Six months ago, Cynthia Guerrera's lover and fellow
archaeologist Rafael Santiago trekked into the Mexican
jungle in search of one of the fabled Cities of Gold-and
never emerged. Guilty over their parting, Cynthia won't
rest until she knows what happened. When the discovery of a
conquistador's journal corroborates Rafe's intended path,
Cynthia is determined to finally leave the safety of the
museum to rescue him, despite the conquistador's dire
warnings, and her own traumatic past.
Arriving at a remote village deep in the jungle, Cynthia is
both elated and angered to find Rafe alive. But he is far
from well, having watched his team be decimated by a
bloodthirsty demon-goddess. When Rafe reveals he has been
gifted with supernatural powers-powers he plans to use to
kill the beast and save his brother, still held captive in
the temple-Cynthia must face her own inner demons to fight
alongside the man she loves.
ExcerptChapter OneThe feel of old papers called to
Cynthia Guerrera the way a lover’s skin might.
Even with the gloves she wore to protect the fragile
documents from the oils on her fingers, she sensed the raspy
texture of the heavy parchment beneath her fingertips.
Smelled the mustiness that hinted at the fact that it had
been some time since these papers had seen the light of day.
At first she had been skeptical about the provenance of
the documents. Missouri cornfields were not the place one
expected to find a trunk filled with nearly
five-hundred-year-old Spanish artifacts. But a Missouri
cornfield was just where the trunk containing the papers,
journal and maps had been discovered when a developer had
begun excavations for a new strip mall.
Setting aside the missive—a letter from Coronado himself
to one of his seconds in command—she turned her attention to
the leather bound journal of Juan Domingo Cordero, one of
the conquistadors who had accompanied Coronado on his
adventures. Gingerly opening the cover, she traced her
fingers over the sprawling script. The first entries in the
journal had provided her with the identity of the author and
the date of the documents thanks to Cordero’s meticulous
notations.
With that information, she had been able to check a
number of other sources to confirm that Cordero had indeed
been one of Coronado’s lieutenants. When Coronado had left
Mexico City in 1540 in search of the fabled Cities of Gold,
Cordero had been at his side for the first leg of the
journey. Coronado had eventually separated from Cordero and
his contingent, ordering them to search in one direction
while he went in another.
Cordero’s entries in the journal carefully detailed their
travels throughout the south central portion of Mexico,
before his band had turned northward until they crossed the
Rio Grande. Eventually the group had drifted eastward and
reached the Mississippi, hugging the fertile banks of the
river until it landed them in the area that would become
known as Missouri.
Tired of their journeys and with their group decimated by
a number of incidents, the Spanish conquistadors had built a
small settlement a short distance from the sluggish and
fruitful waters of the Mississippi.
The notations in Cordero’s journal gradually diminished
after the establishment of that settlement, with the
conquistador’s adventures giving way to the routine of
farming and family life. It seemed that Cordero had finally
stopped writing at all.
Cynthia supposed that was when the conquistador had
tucked the journals detailing his explorations into the
small wood and leather trunk together with his other papers.
The trunk in turn had been put in a cellar, and over time,
the floods that often occurred in the area had covered
Cordero’s home and the surrounding settlement with mud.
Further flooding and natural events had added to the layers
over the former community, hiding its existence from sight
until the developer’s bulldozers had dug up the first hints
of the earlier colonization and the trunk.
Cynthia picked up the report that had arrived that
morning. The assorted laboratory tests she had requested
absolutely confirmed the age of the documents.
With that endorsement came proof of one thing, while
serious doubt remained about a series of entries in the
journals—unusual and unbelievable tales.
She rose and walked over to the climate-controlled locker
in her office and then removed a hand-wrought wood and metal
tube from within. Returning to her worktable, she untied the
laces holding the metal cap in place at one end of the
cylinder and slipped out a pliant sheet of leather that bore
a crudely drawn map identifying the sometimes circuitous
route Cordero and his men had taken from Mexico City.
In the middle of the map, more carefully detailed than
anything else, were the geographical features and path to
what Cordero had believed to be one of the fabled Cities of
Gold. A city supposedly inhabited by a demon goddess who had
taken away and killed nearly half a dozen of his men.
Cordero had decided after the incident that no amount of
lucre was worth their lives and had chosen to leave the area
in search of a safer existence.
Shortly thereafter, he and his men had traveled
northward, reached the Rio Grande, and eventually built the
small farming settlement near the banks of the Mississippi.
Cynthia could well understand the motivation for adopting
a quieter life after such hardships. Her childhood had been
a series of travails thanks to her anthropologist parents
and their thirst for knowledge.
But unlike the entries detailing Cordero’s travels, the
tale of a demon goddess was hard to believe. Yet everything
else about the documents was genuine.
Worse, something about the map had troubled her from the
moment she first unrolled it onto her workstation—its
similarity to one she had seen a little over six months
earlier. As she had compared the various features on the
drawing to a copy of one given to her by her lover, Dr.
Rafael Santiago, she realized there was too much coincidence
to ignore.
So many months ago, Rafe had detailed to her the plans
for his latest archaeological expedition—a trip to a
previously unknown and unexplored Aztec temple located in
south central Mexico. While on that trip, Rafe, his younger
brother and a team of five other men had disappeared into
the Mexican jungle.
For weeks rescuers had searched for them, but without
luck. The guides assisting them had refused to enter the
Devil’s Jungle and without their advice, finding Rafe’s
exact trail toward the temple had been virtually impossible.
For months Cynthia had been reaching out to various
contacts in the area, hoping for word of Rafe and his group
and keeping faith in the belief that they were still alive.
But with each month that passed and every clue that
evaporated into nothingness, that hope was fading along with
the prospect of discovering anything about her lover’s
disappearance…until now.
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