This is one of the best books I’ve read this year. 10 Stars!!
In the early 20th Century, Catalina, lovely young woman/girl lives in the Canary Islands where her family cultivates olive trees. Things are going poorly and her father is ill. Catalina is forced to marry a man who is a good match financially. She does not love or want to marry him. Catalina is in love with her childhood friend and neighbor, a poor, fatherless young man. He is her soulmate, they have long pledged to spend their lives together. By the time Catalina and her Cuban husband head for Cuba, her father has passed and she is pregnant. Catalina is desperate not to spend her life with her husband.
In present day, Catalina’s great-granddaughter, Mara, a Cuban refugee living in New York, is going to the Canary Islands on assignment. She is a journalist. Her mother asks that she get a copy of Catalina’s birth certificate. Mara discovers that Catalina was listed among the dead of the ship the Valbanera, that wrecked off the coast of Key West when traveling to its second Cuban port.
The heart of this story is what happened to Catalina or the woman known as Catalina. We do know and follow the story in Cuba of a woman called Catalina and get to experience her life on the island in the early 20th century. The settings in the novel alone make it worth reading. The dual timeline and dual points of view of “Catalina” and Mara are easy to follow and heartwarming, heartrending and on occasion heart stopping. I cannot emphasize enough that this is a favorite book for me. I wish I could tell more of the story so you could understand better but spoilers would be easy in writing about this. The publishers’ suggestion that this would appeal to fans of Isabell Allende and Kristin Hannah is fair, but understated. Mira Ojito is a compelling and original writer who deserves to be heard and to be praised for this novel, which should appear on award lists.
The narrator of the audio book, Kim Ramirez was exceptional. I would look for work she narrates due to her excellent work.
They Called me Bookworm 