Book Number Two

The King’s Gold by Yxta Maya Murray
Finished Wednesday, Jan 28, 09

Okay, clearly I’m falling behind on the 52 books in 52 weeks idea. It’s nearly the end of January and just yesterday I finished my second book, The King’s Gold by Yxta Maya Murray. It took three weeks for me to get through this book – if this had been a library book, I would have given up on the book, but since I actually paid for the book, I felt compelled to finish it.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I love the idea of the book, but it’s slightly off the mark and is never quite as intriguing or suspenseful as it could be. This is the only the book I have read by this author so I don’t if it’s her style or what. What I did not know when I purchased this book is that it is the second in a series of books. Ms. Murray must have done all her character development in the first book of the series, The Queen’s Jade, because there is none here. This lack of character development was very frustrating in the and because of it my first impression of Lola was that she was very, very stupid.

“Yes, strange man with two enforcers who just walked into my bookstore and told me that you are the psychotic son of a psychotic Guatemalan colonel who recently tried to wipe out my entire family and that you in fact would also like to slit my throat, even though we have just met and you know nothing about me, but because you have waved a old letter in front of my face I will abandon the fiancée that I am going to marry in ten days and follow you to Italy like a happy, trotting, elf [my own random Coupling reference].”

Although, to contradict what I just said, the one thing I did like about Lola is that she didn’t try to claim victim status; she is fully aware that she is making stupid, irrational choices as she makes them. In addition to Lola, I also came to find Marco (psychotic son of a psychotic Guatemalan colonel) and Erik (abandoned fiancée) mildly interesting. I might have even imagined a little chemistry between Lola and Marco.

Late in the book, the rest of Lola’s family is forced into the story and there is not one of them that I found at all interesting. Maybe if I read The Queen’s Jade I won’t mind them so much, but the first book appears to be a central American jungle adventure and that’s not really my thing. According to an interview with the author at the end of The King’s Gold, the third book in the series features Erik’s quest to find Excalibur. I cannot find a title or project release date for this book, and whether or not I actually read the book will depend on my impression of the first chapter or two, which will be read in the bookstore.