I look out the bus window and start to notice the landscape changing. The ochre tone of the horizon, the red of the sky that burns the skin like fire. Everything is dry around here: the vegetation is thirsty and low, the animals are so thin that we can see the shape of their bones. A cloud of dust hangs in the air as our vehicle charges, and, after that, everything returns to silence.
I am more than two thousand kilometers from my home in Rio de Janeiro, heading to the city of my ancestors in the interior of Brazil. A journey that began when a few weeks ago I received a lace veil as a family heirloom. Or perhaps it began even earlier. Much earlier, before my birth, when this veil, which I now am carrying in my lap, was laced by my ancestors.
I feel the relief of the sequence of stitches at the tips of my fingers.
Together, they tell a story of violence.
The first women of the Flores family were skilled lace makers and created a lace code to communicate in secret and save a dear friend who was promised to a powerful and violent man.
I arrive at the small town of Bom Retiro in the interior of Northeast Brazil. My first wish is to find my family's house. A simple house with blue windows where my great-grandmother and her sisters spent their afternoons intertwining threads and attempting to change their destinies.
The house is still standing, but the windows are yellow now, and the garden, once full of flowers, has a cemented floor.
In an era dominated by the will of men, the Flores women were independent because they had their own craft. In that house, there were no husbands or sons, and therefore, people said that the family was victim of a curse, "the curse of the Flores women," condemned to be unhappy for seven generations.
Indeed, all the men who passed through that house with the blue windows had untimely deaths. The reasons varied: snakebite, horse fall, murder, high fever.
My name is Alice, and I am seventh generation Flores.
I don't know if my life is a perfect example of happiness, but I don’t even believe in superstitions like that. My family suffered, that's for sure... But who doesn't? At least, the Flores fought for justice and were always united, intertwined like the strings of their tablecloths.
I carry with me an address, and I am about to meet Mrs. Vitorina, a lady now over a hundred years old, the only living witness of what happened. I want her to tell me everything I still don't know yet.
The veil speaks of the beginning of a tragedy: the forced marriage, the bride's suffering, the husband's violence, the attempt to escape... But there is still a missing piece, and that's what I came to discover here, in Bom Retiro, a land I have never set foot in before, but is also so tight to me.
In this haunting novel about the enduring bonds of womanhood, a young girl weaves together the truth behind her family history and the secrets that resonate through generations.
Eighteen-year-old Alice Ribeiro is constantly fighting—against the status quo, female oppression in Brazil, and even her own mother. But when a family veil is passed down to her, Alice is compelled to fight for the rights of all womankind while also uncovering the hidden history of the women in her family.
Seven generations ago, the small town of Bom Retiro shunned the Flores women because of a “curse” that rendered them unlucky in love. With no men on the horizon to take care of them, the women learned the art of lacemaking to build lives of their own. But their peace was soon threatened by forces beyond any woman’s control.
As Alice begins piecing together the tapestry that is her history, she discovers revelations about the past, connections to the present, and a resilience in her blood that will carry her toward the future her ancestors strove for.
Women's Fiction [Amazon Crossing, On Sale: July 1, 2024, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781662516139 / ]
Angélica Lopes is a novelist, screenwriter, and journalist from Rio de Janeiro with over twenty years of experience in writing fiction. Her dramatic vein came from writing Brazilian soap operas, known worldwide for attracting millions of viewers daily. She is also an award-winning author of YA novels and has written scripts for cinema, TV series, and comedy shows. The Curse of the Flores Women is her first adult novel and was sold for translation in France and Italy even before being published in her native Brazil.
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