A Touch of Gold by Annie Sullivan

I read this book back in March but I wanted to time my review to be closer to the release date so that it could be more relevant for readers! Thank you to Edelweiss for the review copy in exchange for my honest review.

I love mythology and seeing that this book is inspired by the story of King Midas was one of its biggest selling points. I was excited to see how the author would take the original story and put some life into it!

Summary (Goodreads): King Midas once had the ability to turn all he touched into gold. But after his gift—or curse—almost killed his daughter, Midas relinquished The Touch forever. Ten years later, Princess Kora still bears the consequences of her father’s wish: her skin shines golden, rumors follow her everywhere she goes, and she harbors secret powers that are getting harder to hide.
Kora spends her days locked in the palace, concealed behind gloves and veils, trying to ignore the stares and gossip of courtiers. It isn’t until a charming young duke arrives that Kora realizes there may be someone out there who doesn’t fear her or her curse. But their courtship is disrupted when a thief steals precious items from the kingdom, leaving the treasury depleted and King Midas vulnerable. Thanks to her unique ability to sense gold, Kora is the only one who can track the thief down. As she sails off on her quest, Kora learns that not everything is what it seems—not thieves, not pirates, and not even curses. She quickly discovers that gold—and the power it brings—is more dangerous than she’d ever believed.

Midas learned his lesson at a price. What will Kora’s journey cost?

Review: I wish I could say this book earned high praise from me. But I can’t. This book, with its amazing premise, fell short of my expectations and ended up being just like every other generic teen fantasy novel out there.

Let me start by saying that the writing was very nice. There was consistency in flow and voice, so that it was easy for the reader to stay immersed within the story. I wouldn’t say that the world-building was terribly unique; there was a little bit of name-dropping but other than that, the details of the world were quite sparse. However, I wasn’t too bothered with it.

Unfortunately, the writing is the only positive thing I can say about this book. Everything else was just too cookie-cutter for me to enjoy.

First of all, we are shown our main character who is naive to a fault, and is scared of everything. She is your typical plain heroine who needs someone to save her and make her feel better about, well, everything. I really dislike main characters who are dependent on others and don’t do anything on their own. So this novel automatically got one strike from me.

The next problem I had with this novel was that it was predictable. SO predictable. By the time I finished a quarter of the book, I had already figured out how everything would work. And I was right about almost everything. I pegged the villains perfectly as well as the love interest. I was also able to figure out the direction of the story. I hate that I was able to guess everything right away because I immediately lost interest in the story; there was nothing new to it so I just couldn’t care. I liked the pirate aspect of the novel, which I thought was very unique. But there wasn’t enough of it and it wasn’t developed very well. If I had to describe this novel, I would say that this is more about Kora’s insecurities than about her quest to save her father. Everywhere you turn, you have to brace yourself against Kora’s need for others to help her and her inability to figure anything out for herself. All of the action was mired by this intense focus, and that is such a shame because this novel had so much potential.

I think that this novel is for a very juvenile audience, and for those who love romance and insecure protagonists. I was expecting a story rich in mythology and with plenty of adventure. Instead, I was saddled with Kora and a plot that was too simplistic to hold my attention. For those reasons, I’m giving this a 1.5/5 stars, rounded to 2.

Happy reading ~

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