Review: The Cost of Dreams by Gary Stelzer |Book Junkie

Do you ever read a book that just sucks you in and not only captures 100% of your attention but your heart as well. I don't think that I have ever held my breath so many times in reading a book as I did when I read The Cost of Dreams by Gary Stelzer. This is a story about survival and strength like I have never read before. The pure determination to live and find happiness is Flora's main objective as she flees her small Central American village for the US. After her parents are killed in a raid she knows that she too will end up like them if she doesn't change her life with her two brothers. Unfortunately for them they are captured and arrested and Flora is able to escape barely only to begin a new adventure. Survival in the US, alone and penniless.

Eventually Flora is hired as a nanny for a young boy and struggles to get her life together. So strong willed yet you would think she would be so beaten down from her past she meets Monte and they get married. But Monte has a pretty evil brother who is a drug dealer and when he comes around looking for some missing drugs and Monte Flora is the one who is shot in the neck and left for dead. Not just by her brother in law but by Monte her husband as well.

But Flora's story doesn't end there, gathering her will and all her fight she travels across the country to call on someone she considered a friend. Kate and her brother were aid workers in Central America before Flora fled, but Kate holds her own demons, he nephew has gone missing. Kate went home and he disappeared. Her guilt eats her alive and with the arrival of Flora and her persuasion to find out what happened to him they set out an mission for truth and reprieve.

I was captured from the moment I started this book and the pure heart of Flora, the hardship she endoured having to leave her family behind, losing them so tragically I was continually on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen next!