For the month of romance, we’ll look at stories set in lush and unusual locales.
What could be more symbolic of Valentine’s Day than chocolate? So it’s fitting to begin with THE SPANISH DAUGHTER by Lorena Hughes, which explores the delights of chocolate and a city that became renowned for its production. Growing up in Spain, Puri developed a love of chocolate she inherited from her estranged father. To her surprise, she finds upon his death that he has left her his cocoa estate in Vinces, Ecuador. Excited to claim this legacy, she convinces her husband Cristobal to close their chocolate shop and leave World War I-devastated Europe behind to begin a new life on the estate. But someone doesn’t want her to arrive; on the voyage, an assassin tries to murder her, killing her husband instead. To protect herself, Puri adopts her husband’s identity and continues on, still determined to settle in Vinces. Once arrived, she discovers a family she knew little about, half-siblings from her father’s bigamous second marriage, with three sisters now vying to control the business, while the person who wanted her dead is still at large. Incorporating facts about the history of the real Vinces, the “birthplace of cacao,” this family drama contains lush descriptions of 1920s Ecuador as well as vivid details about the growing, harvesting and processing of cacao. What could be a sweeter Valentine treat?
We transfer to the Caribbean for our second selection, HOTEL CUBA by Aaron Hamburger.
Fleeing the chaos of World War I and the antisemitism of the new Soviet state, sisters Pearl and Frieda Khan leave their small town to sail to American, intending to join their sister in New York. But when new, restrictive immigration laws forbid their entry, the sisters travel on to Havana, Cuba. While the practical Pearl uses her sewing skills to eke them out a living, lovely Frieda dreams of being reunited with her fiancé, who is now in Detroit. Shocked by the flashy excess (and incredible heat) of 1920s Havana, unsure whether to risk buying passage to Key West to attempt an illegal entry, the two sisters eventually find their way to the US. Based on the story of the author’s grandmother, Hamburger’s book captures the essence of Roaring Twenties Havana and New York and the indelible bonds of family that carry the two sisters from their Polish homeland to the strange, teeming New World.
We move from Cuba to Key West in HEMINGWAY’S GIRL by Erika Robuck. After her father’s death, Mariella Bennet, daughter of an American fisherman and a Cuban lady, struggles to support her family. While working in a bar/bordello, she bets on a boxing match—and draws the attention of Earnest Hemingway and Gavin Murray, a World War I vet working on building the Overseas Highway. Hemingway gets his wife, Pauline, to hire Mariella as a maid, catapulting her into a world filled with lavish parties and celebrity guests. Strongly drawn to Gavin, she also becomes the object of Hemingway’s erotic interest as his marriage becomes increasingly stormy. Her struggle between her attraction to the forbidden and her desire for the stability she dreams of is interrupted by the Labor Day hurricane of 1935…after which Mariella must choose the path she will follow. Full of rich detail about Hemingway and his world, Robuck’s fictional character illuminates the Post-World War I Key West and the temptations and trials one must surmount to create one’s best life.
We end our Valentines exploration with A HUNDRED SUNS by Karin Tanabe, featuring another locale seldom explored in historical fiction—Vietnam. In 1933, American Jessie Lesage leaves Paris with her husband Victor, an heir to the Michelin rubber fortune, bound for Vietnam, where Victor is to oversee the family’s lucrative rubber plantations. Upon arrival, she meets Marcelle de Fabry, a glamourous expat with a wealthy Indochinese lover. But under the splendor and excess of enormous houses staffed with a plethora of servants, dining and drinking at exclusive clubs, purchasing elegant clothes and pursuing an idle life, a political battle is raging between the wealthy Westerners and the French government, who want to suppress local culture and exploit the native workers, and secret groups of anti-colonialists and communists, whose goal is to overthrow French rule. Beginning to wonder who is a friend, and who is an enemy, Jessie is drawn into a dangerous conflict where nothing is as it seems. Tanabe’s lush picture of Paris and Vietnam of the 1930s provides a vivid backdrop to the story of one woman’s journey from innocent spectator to knowledgeable observer—and the choices that forces her to make.
Ready to treat yourself to a sweet delight of exotic locates? From the New World to the jungles of Asia, this month’s selections should be sure to satisfy!
Real, intense, passionate historical romance
Award-winning romance author Julia Justiss, who has written more than thirty historical novels and novellas set in the English Regency and the American West, just completed her first contemporary series set in the fictional Hill Country town of Whiskey River, Texas.
A voracious reader who began jotting down plot ideas for Nancy Drew novels in her third grade spiral, Julia has published poetry and worked as a business journalist.
She and her husband live in East Texas, where she continues to craft the stories she loves. Check her website for details about her books, chat with her on social media, and follow her on Bookbub and Amazon to receive notices about her latest releases.
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