Avon (Paperback), ISBN 0380816512
Blame it on reading too many Elizabeth Peters mysteries too young and too often, but I can't resist a book that mixes a starchy, likeable heroine with a roguish archeologist hero and a long lost treasure. In The Price of Passion, Susan Sizemore delivers all three and a sinister secret society. What right-thinking archeological romantic suspense fan could ask for anything more?

At a far too tender age, Cleopatra Fraser, daughter of one of Britain's most eminent historians, abandoned herself to the seduction of archeologist A. David (Angel) Evans. But Angel abandoned Cleopatra to her father's less than tender mercies.

In the ten years since the event, Dr. Everett Fraser lost no opportunity to remind Cleo of her fall -- to a black-hearted tomb robber, to boot. Cleo's one misstep serves Fraser well. It keeps Cleo by his side, writing the papers that keep Fraser's reputation green. And now the not-so-good doctor wants to use Cleo's "sin" to secure funding for an expedition to find the tomb of Alexander the Great.

Only one thing stands in the way of Fraser pere's plans: the return of Angel Evans.

Visions of the past and present the one-time lovers share twirl through the book like the figures of a dance. Neither the dark Angel nor the angel whose reputation he blackened prove to be the people they think they are. But they must rise above their histories and themselves, or else risk losing a fabulous treasure -- not to mention their lives.

Traveling from the tombs of Egypt to the windswept Aegean to the stuffy drawing rooms of a college town in Scotland, Sizemore never misses a step. Elizabeth Peters should be proud. And the rest of the world should grab the popcorn and soda right now. You'll want to read this book straight through.

Jean Marie Ward

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