When we left Cuba / Chanel Cleeton.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780451490865
- ISBN: 045149086X
- Physical Description: 346 pages ; 21 cm
- Edition: First edition.
- Publisher: New York, New York : Berkley, 2019.
- Copyright: ©2019.
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Cubans > United States > Fiction. Cuban American women > Fiction. Spy stories. |
Genre: | Historical fiction. Love stories. |
Other Formats and Editions
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Gibsons Public Library | FIC CLEE (Text) | 30886001065628 | Adult Fiction Hardcover | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2019 March #2
Cleeton continues the stories of the Perez sisters, introduced in Next Year in Havana (2018), this time featuring the firebrand sister Beatriz, who bookends her first-person story with a prologue and an epilogue that take place on the night of Fidel Castro's death, November 25, 2016. In between, this passionate novel set in the 1980s dramatizes Beatriz's laser focus on making Castro pay for her brother's death and her family's exile by scheming with members of exiled Cuban groups, including Eduardo, a handsome friend from her youth, and a slippery CIA operative. While the Perez family struggles to maintain its social standing in Miami, Beatriz seeks intrigue and falls into an illicit and impossible love affair with charming Nick, a Kennedy-like figure already engaged in a match that will be politically favorable. In often purple prose, Cleeton offers plenty of melodrama to ponder, and fans of the first novel will be thrilled. Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews. - BookPage Reviews : BookPage Reviews 2019 April
When We Left CubaOn the surface, Beatriz Perez is a gorgeous 22-year-old society woman gliding through a cycle of parties, gossip and marriage proposals along with the other moneyed elite in 1960s Palm Beach, Florida. But beneath her cool exterior burns a pure, sharp desire for revenge. In Chanel Cleeton's When We Left Cuba, we learn that Beatriz and her family (including sister Elisa, protagonist of Cleeton's Next Year in Havana) left Cuba after Fulgencio Batista was overthrown, Fidel Castro took power and her sugar-magnate father's land was seized by the government.Â
The Perezes moved to Palm Beach in hopes of finding a sense of safety, rebuilding the family fortune and, to Beatriz's unending frustration, marrying off the unwed daughters. She has much bigger plansâlike, say, taking down Castro so she can go home to her beloved Cuba. Thanks to her still-privileged social position and her strong bond with Eduardo, a family friend and revolutionary, she's actually got a chance at doing so. Eduardo introduces her to a CIA agent who sees her as a good bet: She's fierce and smart, anger has made her reckless, and her social status gives her plausibility.
But there's a complicating factor. Beatriz and Nicholasâa smart, sexy senator-to-beâmeet at a fancy party, and their chemistry is immediate and electric. Alas, he's engaged, an arrangement orchestrated by two families that want political and financial benefits from the union. Beatriz and Nicholas understand each other on that level and so many others, from the political to the personal to the physical. But amid the aftermath of war and continued upheaval in the U.S. and Cuba, plus divergent views on how best to achieve their goals, being together often feels impossible.
An edifying, entertaining read filled with adventure, suspense, history and romance, When We Left Cuba is a thought-provoking look at the ways in which politics can be intensely personal.
Copyright 2019 BookPage Reviews. - LJ Express Reviews : LJ Express Reviews
Cleeton (Next Year in Havana) follows up her historical fiction family saga in her second novel. The trials of the Perez family, which were relayed through the eyes of Elisa and her granddaughter Marisol between 1958 Havana and 2017 Miami, FL, continue with the story of the eldest Perez sister, Beatriz. The novel opens in 1960s Palm Beach, FL, and as the family tries to settle into a life of exile after being stripped of their land by Castro's revolution, Beatriz vows revenge against and payback from Castro. Recruited by the CIA to get close to Fidel when he arrives in New York City for a summit, Beatriz has orders to kill Cuba's new dictator. But she didn't expect to fall in love with a powerful U.S. senatorâor that she would begin to rethink where her heart, her love, and her loyalties lie. She is forced to grapple with the consequences of her choices and decide if love is stronger than retribution. VERDICT Historical fiction fans will find that Cleeton is an incredible storyteller of the past, describing Palm Beach and Havana of the 1960s as clearly as if she had been there, taking readers along through a decade that would change the world.âAdriana Delgado, West Palm Beach, FL (c) Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2019 February #3
Cleeton (
Copyright 2019 Publishers Weekly.Next Year in Havana ) will break hearts with this exquisitely wrought tale of a privileged girl exiled from her country and the powerful American politician who changes the course of her life. After Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, Beatriz Perez and her family sought refuge in Palm Beach, Fla., and tried to rebuild. But Beatriz craves revenge: the Cuban leader was responsible for her twin brother's murder, and she believes thatâwith the help of a fellow exile, Eduardo Diaz, and her recruitment into the CIAâshe can avenge that death. When U.S. Senator Nicholas Randolph Preston III enters her world at a Palm Beach society ball, she loses her heart quickly to the man who will change her life. Cleeton's twisting, intricate plot of love and revenge takes Beatriz to such locations as Harlem and London (where she faces off with a trained Cuban intelligence officer) and finally to a potentially deadly meeting with Castro in Cuba. Tiny glimpses of the present day are woven throughout the novel, giving readers hints of what became of two idealistic souls. This is a beautiful and utterly transporting novel.Agent: Kevan Lyon, Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. (Apr.)