Gripping and cinematic, the novel’s worlds of El Paso past and present will bewitch and enrapture.
A busy El Paso lawyer embarks on a supernatural journey when she uncovers a startling truth about her great-aunt.
In 1943, Elena Eduviges Montoya, called “Nena” by her family, resigns herself to serving her older sisters as a housemaid and nanny while World War II rages, “biding her time until the Germans attacked.” But one sweltering afternoon, Nena has a vision foretelling the death of their landlord, and that night she receives a midnight visit from black-clad Sister Benedicta de la Cruz, who transports her to 1792—when El Paso del Norte was still part of New Spain—and leads her to a strange convent, where the nuns are likewise afflicted by visions. Nena learns she must remain in this enchanted realm in order to undertake training to channel “La Vista,” that part of God that comprises nature and chaos, before she can return home. Fast forward to the present day, and Nena’s great-niece, Marta, juggles her roles as a lawyer at a struggling firm, a mother to two boys, and a wife stuck in a humdrum marriage. All this gets turned upside down when an alarming kitchen incident involving the elderly Nena, burned rice, and handsome firemen brings Nena to live with Marta’s family. After Marta has an unnerving experience with seemingly supernatural soot (“when she opens her eyes again, the wall continues to blink, soot there, soot gone”), Nena comes clean about a secret she’s kept for a lifetime: She gave birth to a baby, Rosa, during her time on “the other side.” The revelation sets the women on a path to recover Rosa from the shadowy realm of El Paso del Norte. Alternating chapters between Nena’s past and Marta’s present, Jaramillo braids the storylines together like a mal de ojo bracelet, seamlessly weaving in Spanish language terms and Mexican cultural touchstones such as pozole, rebozo, and el aquelarre. Jaramillo’s atmospheric prose conjures the dusty El Paso of the past, and depictions of La Vista vibrate with “colorful knots of waves,” glowing indigo, maroon, and bright pink, yielding “a wild spell, like yeast in the air.” This riveting page-turner affirms the adage, “Family stories teach us how to live. Family secrets teach us to kill parts of ourselves.”
Gripping and cinematic, the novel’s worlds of El Paso past and present will bewitch and enrapture.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781668033210
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Primero Sueño Press
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
Haig’s positive message will keep his fans happy.
A British widow travels to Ibiza and learns that it’s never too late to have a happy life.
In a world that seems to be getting more unstable by the moment, Haig’s novels are a steady ship in rough seas, offering a much-needed positive message. In works like the bestselling The Midnight Library (2020), he reminds us that finding out what you truly love and where you belong in the universe are the foundations of building a better existence. His latest book continues this upbeat messaging, albeit in a somewhat repetitive and facile way. Retired British schoolteacher Grace Winters discovers that an old acquaintance has died and left her a ramshackle home in Ibiza. A widow who lost her only child years earlier, Grace is at first reluctant to visit the house, because, at 72, she more or less believes her chance for happiness is over—but when she rouses herself to travel to the island, she discovers the opposite is true. A mystery surrounds her friend’s death involving a roguish islander, his activist daughter, an internationally famous DJ, and a strange glow in the sea that acts as a powerful life force and upends Grace’s ideas of how the cosmos works. Framed as a response to a former student’s email, the narrative follows Grace’s journey from skeptic (she was a math teacher, after all) to believer in the possibility of magic as she learns to move on from the past. Her transformation is the book’s main conflict, aside from a protest against an evil developer intent on destroying Ibiza’s natural beauty. The outcome is never in doubt, and though the story often feels stretched to the limit—this novel could have easily been a novella—the author’s insistence on the power of connection to change lives comes through loud and clear.
Haig’s positive message will keep his fans happy.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593489277
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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