📕📕📕📕📕
The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes
Chanel Cleeton
352 pages
Berkeley Publishing
I have been less than enthralled with Ms. Cleeton’s novels recently—until this one. The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes is one of Ms. Cleeton’s best books in years. I read this in two sittings and that was only because I started it in the evening.
Like all of Ms. Cleeton’s novels, this is a work of historical fiction which contains a fair amount of romance and it has multiple timelines. This is her formula which has served her well. It also contains details about Cuba which features prominently in the novel. The question is, what about this particular book makes it better than her last few in my opinion. There are a couple of distinctions. One is that there are three different timelines, going from modern day to 1900 and 1966. This COULD be confusing (as a general rule, I do not tend to like books with more than two timelines for that reason). However, it all worked here because it was pretty apparent what united them all, which was a book that in many ways did not seem so important back in 1900 when it was written which became something that everyone was desperate to get their hands on. In addition, there was a bit of mystery thrown in so that the reader could find out what about the book did people find to be important and what happened to it. Finally, I just love books about books, so that was a plus. In any event, the mystery about the book kept the reader fully engaged until the end.
In addition, while the details about Cuba were delivered as always, they seemed thoughtful and thought provoking and appropriate to the place in the timeline. The romance, while definitely presents, seemed to be correctly placed and not overwhelmed and did not take precedence over the story and history of the book.
Thanks to Berkeley Publishing and to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for my honest opinions and thoughts.
Leave a Reply