It’s the year 2021, in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, when twenty-four-year-old Lena Perez discovers her grandfather’s love letters. She has just ended a three-year relationship with Paulo Oliviera-a Brazilian ex-soccer player-after realizing he will never be accepted by her Cuban-American mother. She feels lost. Through the letters kept by the wounded Vietnam veteran Rolando Perez, Lena learns about events that occurred long before her birth and took her grandfather from Cuba to the United States and Vietnam. Through these letters, she is able to peel the layers of who she is, learning about where her family comes from, uncovering secrets, and finding who she will become. ***
In her newest novel, award-winning author Betty Viamontes uses the first-person narrative and brilliantly exploits the epistolary approach. As in her prior works, she continues to describe life in Cuba. The novel is set in present day and is full of surprises that will keep you guessing what will happen next. -Susana Jimenez-Mueller, storyteller and podcaster, author of Now I Swim and The Green Plantain - The Cuban Stories Project podcast.
About the Author Betty Viamontes was born in Havana, Cuba. When Betty was fifteen, she and her family crossed the Florida Straits in an overcrowded shrimp boat on a stormy night when many families perished. This trip would reunite the family with Betty’s father in the United States after twelve years of separation. Betty completed graduate studies at the University of South Florida. Upon her mother’s death, Betty began to dedicate her life to capturing stories of people without a voice.
Her stories have traveled the world from the award-winning Waiting on Zapote Street to the No. 1 newest releases, The Pedro Pan Girls and The Girl from White Creek.
Betty has published nine books, including the novel she wrote to fulfill the promise she made to her mother before she died. Despite Betty’s mother’s battle with cancer, she witnessed many of Betty’s accomplishments. However, she was not able to see the publication of Waiting on Zapote Street, her story. In 2018, actor Edward James Olmos announced that Waiting on Zapote Street had been a winner of the Latino Books Into Movies Award. The Latino Author website also lists this autobiographical novel as one of the best ten books of 2016, and in 2017 and again in 2020, it became an Amazon bestseller in its category, after being selected by a United Nations women’s book club and multiple others. Betty’s life has been filled with many challenges, but she managed to survive those challenges and help others along the way. Betty hopes that as long as someone reads her mother’s story, her spirit, her determination, and the love she gave to all she met will go on forever. She also hopes to preserve the history of the Cuban people.
Circumstances / Cuba / DNA results / Exile / Family / History / Love Letters / Grandfathers / Granddaughters / Relationships/ Second Chances
