THE QUEEN OF THE VALLEY

Buried secrets, personal tragedies, and natural disasters unfold on a Colombian hacienda.

On April 7, 1925, a gala organized by Dr. Farid Manzur and Martin Sabater at Martin's Colombian cacao plantation turns dark when Martin rides off on horseback to give some guests a tour of the estate and never returns. Months later, María “Puri” Purificación arrives from Ecuador with her young assistant, Paco, her “guardian angel,” to visit Martin, an old friend and, unknown to him, the father of her young son. Tragedy strikes on two fronts. While riding in a landau to their destination, Puri and Paco are attacked by bandits who kill Paco. Shortly after, an earthquake temporarily puts Puri’s journey to see Martin—she still doesn’t know he’s missing—on hold. Though Hughes’ floridly written tale is grounded in history, she heightens anticipation by jumbling the narrative timeline and presenting the story in short chapters from the perspectives of three different first-person narrators. Puri, the resourceful heroine of Hughes’ novel The Spanish Daughter (2021), is joined by Farid’s sister Camila, a loving and compassionate nun but far from a submissive helpmeet, and Lucas, a womanizing outsider and old friend of Martin’s who reconnected with him shortly before the disappearance. Flashbacks illuminate Martin’s checkered past and his relationships to the three narrators, while the present-day plot follows Farid’s attempt to gain control of Martin’s estate and folds in a handful of other backstories against the backdrop of a cholera epidemic that sweeps through the region following the earthquake.

A juicy potboiler with a palpable sense of history.