Drawn to the exotic island of Puerto Rico by the diaries of an ancestor who traveled there with Ponce de Leâon, Ana Cubillas becomes involved with enamored twin brothers Ramâon and Inocente before convincing them to claim a sugar plantation they have inherited. - (Baker & Taylor)
Drawn to the exotic island of Puerto Rico by the diaries of an ancestor who traveled there with Ponce de Leâon, Ana Cubillas becomes involved with enamored twin brothers Ramâon and Inocente before convincing them to claim a sugar plantation they have inherited. - (Baker & Taylor)
Drawn to the exotic island of Puerto Rico by the diaries of an ancestor who traveled there with Ponce de León, Ana Cubillas becomes involved with enamored twin brothers Ramón and Inocente before convincing them to claim a sugar plantation they have inherited. By the author of Almost a Woman. 75,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)An epic novel of love, discovery, and adventure by the author of the best-selling memoir When I Was Puerto Rican.
As a young girl growing up in Spain, Ana Larragoity Cubillas is powerfully drawn to Puerto Rico by the diaries of an ancestor who traveled there with Ponce de León. And in handsome twin brothers Ramón and Inocente—both in love with Ana—she finds a way to get there. She marries Ramón, and in 1844, just eighteen, she travels across the ocean to a remote sugar plantation the brothers have inherited on the island.
Ana faces unrelenting heat, disease and isolation, and the dangers of the untamed countryside even as she relishes the challenge of running Hacienda los Gemelos. But when the Civil War breaks out in the United States, Ana finds her livelihood, and perhaps even her life, threatened by the very people on whose backs her wealth has been built: the hacienda’s slaves, whose richly drawn stories unfold alongside her own. And when at last Ana falls for a man who may be her destiny—a once-forbidden love—she will sacrifice nearly everything to keep hold of the land that has become her true home.
This is a sensual, riveting tale, set in a place where human passions and cruelties collide: thrilling history that has never before been brought so vividly and unforgettably to life. - (Random House, Inc.)
Esmeralda Santiago is the author of the memoirs When I Was Puerto Rican, Almost a Woman, which she adapted into a Peabody Award–winning film for PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre, and The Turkish Lover; the novel América’s Dream; and a children’s book, A Doll for Navidades. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and House & Garden, among other publications, and on NPR’s All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, she lives in New York.
www.esmeraldasantiago.com - (Random House, Inc.)
Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Santiago (When I Was Puerto Rican, 1993) brings her memoir-writing talent to fiction with this extraordinary historical novel set in nineteenth-century Puerto Rico and featuring a high-handed, strong-willed woman determined to escape her boring upper-class future in Spain. When twin brothers inherit a sugar plantation in Puerto Rico, Ana marries them (who can tell them apart?), and they embark on what for the brothers is a lark but for Ana is serious business. From the start, she takes to the land and the grueling work of processing cane in the Caribbean climate, keeping the slaves inherited with the property and adding to their number over the years. She becomes the very image of a conquering hero: implacable, outspoken, demanding. Her husbands languish and fade, while Ana runs Hacienda los Gemelos without their help. The issues of social caste, slavery, and sex roles make this a fascinating read. It's an outstanding story, full of pathos, tropical sensuality, and violence, but it also poses uncomfortable moral questions readers are forced to consider. With the simmering mood of Austin Clark's The Polished Hoe (2003) and the storytelling genius of Lalita Tademy in Cane River (2001), Conquistadora is a book-group must. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.
