Interesting, occasionally grim, YA novel set in the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan at the time of the arrival of the Conquistadores.
Told from the viewpoint of the titular goldsmith's daughter, Itacate, born under unpropitious signs into a culture dominated by the complex and often bloodthirsty demands of its pantheon of gods, without whose aid the sun literally could not defeat the forces of darkness to rise in the dawn.
When Itacate shows early talent in designing and creating the gold idols and jewelry treasured by the city's elite, her father accepts her as an unofficial apprentice, despite custom restricting this trade to males, and this ruse brings both to the attention of the Emperor Montezuma, giving Itacate a front-row seat to the arrival of the Spanish invaders.
It's at this point that the book shifts gears, from the YA trope of a young woman defying custom to follow her dream, to an eye-witness account of one of the most horrifying incidents in the blood-soaked history of European incursion into the New World â the fall of Tenochtitlan and the essential destruction of the Aztec empire.
There's a romance subplot which actually serves as more than window-dressing, and a complex heroine-narrator who simultaneously chafes at the restrictions imposed on young women in her culture while firmly believing in the reality and power of the deities who control her life.
Told from the viewpoint of the titular goldsmith's daughter, Itacate, born under unpropitious signs into a culture dominated by the complex and often bloodthirsty demands of its pantheon of gods, without whose aid the sun literally could not defeat the forces of darkness to rise in the dawn.
When Itacate shows early talent in designing and creating the gold idols and jewelry treasured by the city's elite, her father accepts her as an unofficial apprentice, despite custom restricting this trade to males, and this ruse brings both to the attention of the Emperor Montezuma, giving Itacate a front-row seat to the arrival of the Spanish invaders.
It's at this point that the book shifts gears, from the YA trope of a young woman defying custom to follow her dream, to an eye-witness account of one of the most horrifying incidents in the blood-soaked history of European incursion into the New World â the fall of Tenochtitlan and the essential destruction of the Aztec empire.
There's a romance subplot which actually serves as more than window-dressing, and a complex heroine-narrator who simultaneously chafes at the restrictions imposed on young women in her culture while firmly believing in the reality and power of the deities who control her life.
