Incas, Book II: The Gold of Cuzco

By Antoine B. Daniel

Book Overview

In this haunting second book of the internationally bestselling Incas trilogy, the Incan empire is threatened by the Conquistadors, whose insatiable hunger for gold will destroy a glorious, ancient civilization -- unless they can be thwarted by a mystic force greater than any army....

Princess Anamaya's hypnotic blue eyes have seen too much. Having guarded the passage of the dying Emperor, she is now chosen by the gods to stand beside the new Emperor and divine the future of the Incan Empire -- a future shadowed by brutal warriors who worship foreign gods. The Conquistadors and their armies seek to enslave the Incas and loot their sacred temples and royal treasuries, despite Anamaya's attempts to foster peace. When it comes to a prize as valuable as Cuzco, the city of the sacred puma, they refuse to heed her warnings.
The soldier Gabriel has come among Anamaya's people as a conqueror, but the honorable Spaniard is untainted by his companions' lust for wealth and power. His fascination with the splendor of Anamaya's land, and its ancient heritage, is matched only by the passion he and Anamaya come to share. But when his countrymen push forward in their quest to plunder Cuzco, he is forced to join the battle, leaving Anamaya struggling with divided loyalties and their forbidden love in the wake of this first major confrontation between the Spanish and the Incas.
Filled with romance and adventure and colored by the changeless desires that link man and woman throughout the ages, The Gold of Cuzco is a thrilling follow-up to The Puma's Shadow, the first book in the Incas trilogy.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743432754
• ISBN13: 9780743432757
• Release Date: December 2002
• Publisher: Atria Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Incas : Book One: The Puma's Shadow

Good, but not great. Very good historical information, but a bit too mystical for my taste. Interesting characters; however, there were references to events that were not previously covered in the book. Otherwise worth reading.

Part3: Light of Machu Picchu + a general view of the trilogy

After reaching the end of the third book of this trilogy, I was left with the following impressions:1. The most interesting thing about this trilogy is that it focus on a subject that is almost forgotten in historical fiction: the Inca civilization. That alone is reason to buy the trilogy, for those who are interested in the subject.2. The books are a blend of accurate history and a somewhat corny and water-and-sugar clicheed love story; there are better books on similar subjects, like Gary Jennings' "Aztec" and Collen MacCullough's "First man in Rome" series. 3. The authors chose to portrait too many characters, sometimes confusing the readers, especially when concerning Inca characters. Excluding the Sapa Incas, the other native pre-columbian characters are almost always variations on the same one.4. When Gabriel, the spanish central character, is not part of the plot, the chapters just drag along, many times boring and tiresome. Anamaya, the main Inca character, lacks strenght. 5. As I read the books, I realised the trilogy starts very well, but ends badly. This should not be a trilogy, but only one book, better edited, with a better-developed plot. The authors focused too much on dead-end fictional characters, while historical figures, when they appeared, were always portraied as evil people. The third part is very similar to the first two, and the three books should be read as one. After closing this third book, I felt I liked the trilogy, but could have enjoyed it more, due to the reasons stated above. But as this is the only (as far as I know) fictional account of the Inca civilization, it should get the attention of historical-fiction addicts.Grade 8.0/10

The second and better part of the trilogy

After reading the first two parts of the Incas trilogy, I can say that "The gold of Cuzco" is better than the first part, "The puma's shadow". The three authors have now achieved the consistency and class their book deserved. In this second part, the spanish conquistadores are now a part of the Inca empire's life: there's no way to pretend they're not there, and after the death of Atahualpa it's the spanish that now rule de facto. However, the spanish Governador, Pizarro, must be an almost perfect politician, because he has to rule over the increasing fight for gold and power among the spanish officials and he must not let the remaining of the inca army to uprise again. Meanwhile, Gabriel and Anamaya, the main characters and love-duo of the first book, even in a crazed lust for each other, are not able to be together that often: Anamaya is the wife of the revered statue that represents all incas' ancestors, and Gabriel is spanish, which means that all incas see him as ruthless, evil and whose only interest in their lands is gold and raping women (not a beautiful vision).The style remains the same: narrated in first person, the story seems to flow smoothly and continuously. But the plot is better, more exciting and interesting. The characters, though, at some times seem formulaic: the spanish are bad people, the incas are naïve, the inca princess falls in love with the only spaniard that stands for the inca people. Yes, I've seen it before, but "The gold of Cuzco" is nevertheless a good book. Descriptions of the peruvian Andes countryside are very rich and real. The slow pace of the narration provides the reader with a very accurate mental image of the scenes in the story. As I've written in my review of the first book in the trilogy, the three authors have the needed background to write the story mixing essencial historical facts with the right amount of fiction to deliver an interesting book of historical fiction.Now, on to "The light of Macchu Picchu", the third and final part of the series.Grade 9.0/10

Interesting start for the trilogy

Nowadays, the reader has to be careful about historic fiction. There is a big number of authors who, having made the smallest research about some point or other in history, give birth to terrible books advertised as "historic fiction", whereas "historic" is some tiny background barely mentioned in the plot, and the "fiction" is the worst possible. I must admit I had this feeling about the Inca trilogy, but since there is very few fiction books concerning the Inca people, and I enjoy reading about pre-Colombian people, and (best of all) I received this one as a gift, I fave it a try.About the author: in fact there are three authors (Antoine B. Daniel is a kind of compilation of their names); one of them is a history scholar, the other one is a awarded fiction writer, etc, and the story behind the book is that they gathered to write about the Incas like Jennings wrote about the Aztecs."The puma's shadow" (in Brazil, like in France, the title is "Princess of the sun") is the first part of the trilogy. In this first volume, we get to know the Inca empire shortly before the arrival of the spanish: the struggle for power between Huascar and Atahualpa, based on the visions of the female main character of the book: the strange, blue-eyed Anamaya. On the other side, in Spain, we are acquainted with Don Gabriel, a deserted young man, who seeks fortune in the new lands of Peru.The first part of the trilogy is where the reader knows the backgrounds (the dying days of the Inca empire) and the motivations of the main characters. I think this may be the slowest book of the trilogy, but it's very well written and the research seems well done. The three authors deserve the praise to have acomplished a good book with an unusual theme and fairly developed characters. Grade 8.8/10

Superb

Volume one of this translation from the French is a sparkling story set against the conquest of Peru and the Inca Empire by Pizarro. The Puma's Shadow tells the story of the blue-eyed - and therefore mystical - Anamaya who was abducted by the Incas when her village was razed as a child. An outcast she becomes the wife of the Sun King's Huayna Capac Sacred Double after he passes the secrets of the ancient Incas to her on his deathbed.Her life at the Inca Court becomes fraught with danger as the warring family factions seek to become the new Sun King as the prince designate Atahualpa refuses the crown. With the attentions of Manco, Guaypar and Inti Palla she is mentored, begrudgingly at first, with pride later, by the High Priest Villa Oma as her visionary abilities begin to flower. A world away, a dashing Don Gabriel is freed from Spanish prison of the Inquisition, disavowed from his family inheritance and joins Capitan Pizarro petition to conquer the New World and find the endless rivers of gold of Peru.As each's fate comes closer together, the lives of Don Gabriel and Anamaya are intricately woven into a powerful tale of mystery, romance and breathtaking exhilaration as the fate of a peoples is unravelled in this novel.The author has created a gripping historical fantasy at the time when old and new worlds collide and has certainly ensured reading the next volumes.