Blog Tour Excerpt: The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba by Chanel Cleeton

The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba

by Chanel Cleeton

Berkley Trade Paperback; May 4, 2021

At the end of the nineteenth century, three revolutionary women fight for freedom in New York Times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton's captivating new novel inspired by real-life events and the true story of a legendary Cuban woman--Evangelina Cisneros--who changed the course of history.

A feud rages in Gilded Age New York City between newspaper tycoons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. When Grace Harrington lands a job at Hearst's newspaper in 1896, she's caught in a cutthroat world where one scoop can make or break your career, but it's a story emerging from Cuba that changes her life.

Unjustly imprisoned in a notorious Havana women's jail, eighteen-year-old Evangelina Cisneros dreams of a Cuba free from Spanish oppression. When Hearst learns of her plight and splashes her image on the front page of his paper, proclaiming her, "The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba," she becomes a rallying cry for American intervention in the battle for Cuban independence.

With the help of Marina Perez, a courier secretly working for the Cuban revolutionaries in Havana, Grace and Hearst's staff attempt to free Evangelina. But when Cuban civilians are forced into reconcentration camps and the explosion of the USS Maine propels the United States and Spain toward war, the three women must risk everything in their fight for freedom.

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Excerpt

“I’m here for a job if you have one. As a reporter. I’ve spent the last few years writing for smaller papers, getting experience where I could.” I gesture to the leather folio in my lap. “I’ve brought samples of my work if you’d like to look at them. They’re not necessarily the kinds of stories I want to cover, but they’re a start.”

“Why do you wish to work here, Miss Harrington?” Pulitzer asks, making no move to take the folio from me.

“Because of the stories you cover, the impact you have. The World has one of the largest circulations in the world.”

Indeed, Mr. Pulitzer has just slashed the World’s price to one cent, saying he prefers power to profits, circulation the measure by which success is currently judged.

“You have the opportunity to reach readers, to bring about change, to help people who desperately need assistance,” I add. “I’ve admired the work you’ve done for years. You’ve long set the tone the rest of the New York newspaper industry follows. You’ve filled a gap in the news, given a voice to people who wouldn’t have otherwise had one. I’ve read the articles you wrote when you were a reporter yourself in St. Louis, and I admire the manner in which you address society’s ills. You’ve revolutionized the newspaper. I want to be part of that.”

Q&A with Brenda Sparks Prescott, Author of Home Front Lines

Please join me in welcoming Brenda Sparks Prescott to Let Them Read Books! Brenda is celebrating the release of her debut historical novel, Home Front Lines, and I'm thrilled to have her here today with a Q&A!

In 1962 tensions are rising between the United States and the Soviet Union. But it is the everyday tensions of home, family, and military life that are top of mind for military spouse and African American Betty Ann Johnson in D.C. and Cuban Lola Montero who is asked to cook for the Soviet troops amassing on her island. At a time when many Americans feel unsettled and fearful of nuclear war, these women harness their agency to prepare their families for the worst in Home Front Lines by Brenda Sparks Prescott.

When Betty Ann catches wind that military preparations are being made for something more than just practice drills, she gathers a small band of military spouses to develop an evacuation plan for their children. Across the Florida Straits, Lola accidentally witnesses the installation of a Soviet missile. She and her sisters secretly make plans to send their children to Florida without their husbands’ knowledge. The two women are on opposing sides of the conflict, but they share the same fierce determination in protecting their children.

Home Front Lines is a story of strong and determined women. It is a story of BIPOC historical fiction in the 20th century, a genre that too often leaves out narratives not directly tied to the World Wars, the Great Migration, or Civil Rights movement. But these communities existed in every time and place, and their stories deserve to be told. 

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Hi Brenda! Welcome to Let Them Read Books!

You've had short fiction published in a variety of literary magazines - why the switch to writing a novel?

Brenda Sparks Prescott: I have always been interested in long form fiction. My initial story ideas are often too complex for a short form, especially when coupled with my habit of asking “what if” while building the world in which each story lives. In fact, the original take on what is now Home Front Lines was a triptych story that was about 40 pages long. One of my mentors who was also an editor of a literary journal said it was too long for a short story and too short for a novella. He suggested I get rid of one or two of the three primary elements and make it into a short story. Instead, I kept asking “what if,” which took my original exploration deeper and eventually resulted in this novel. The short form wasn’t completely lost, though, as chapters from an earlier version of the novel were published as stand-alone short stories in literary journals.

How has your experience with Solstice Literary Magazine and the MFA program informed your writing?

Brenda Sparks Prescott: Solstice Literary Magazine and the Solstice MFA program have a common origin in terms of their visionary founders, but they are separate entities that involve overlapping communities. It has been immensely nourishing to be part of these communities, which embody the concept of inclusive excellence through their intentional actions to support diverse voices. I can’t imagine getting this project to publication without their support.

Blog Tour Review: When We Left Cuba by Chanel Cleeton

From the Back Cover:

In 1960s Florida, a young Cuban exile will risk her life--and heart--to take back her country in this exhilarating historical novel from the author of Next Year in Havana, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick.

Beautiful. Daring. Deadly. 

The Cuban Revolution took everything from sugar heiress Beatriz Perez--her family, her people, her country. Recruited by the CIA to infiltrate Fidel Castro's inner circle and pulled into the dangerous world of espionage, Beatriz is consumed by her quest for revenge and her desire to reclaim the life she lost. 

As the Cold War swells like a hurricane over the shores of the Florida Strait, Beatriz is caught between the clash of Cuban American politics and the perils of a forbidden affair with a powerful man driven by ambitions of his own. When the ever-changing tides of history threaten everything she has fought for, she must make a choice between her past and future--but the wrong move could cost Beatriz everything--not just the island she loves, but also the man who has stolen her heart...

My Thoughts:

Next Year in Havana was one of my favorite books of 2018. The story of Elisa Perez's experiences in the Cuban revolution and her granddaughter Marisol's eye-opening trip to present-day Cuba utterly transported me and left a lasting impression, so I was so happy when I saw Elisa's sister Beatriz was getting her own book. But that also meant I had extremely high expectations for the sequel!

While Elisa's story took place in Cuba during the revolution and Marisol's in the present day, Beatriz's story takes place among the Cuban exiles living in south Florida in the years after the revolution and sheds light on the situation many refugees found themselves in, having to watch tyranny take over their beloved island from afar, worried about loved ones they left behind, struggling to adjust to their new reality in a new country.

As a famous socialite in Cuba and a scandalous one in America, beautiful, intelligent, and sensuous, with ties to both the revolutionaries and the resistance, Beatriz Perez is quick to catch the attention of not only every bachelor in Palm Beach, but also the CIA. Beneath the carefree facade she presents in public, Beatriz is angry. Very angry. And her anger needs an outlet. Lured with the promise of helping bring down Fidel Castro, Beatriz becomes a spy.

But there are complications. Beatriz falls in love for the first time, with a powerful man, and their relationship could present a threat to her ambitions and the nation's security. She constantly feels the disapproval of her parents and their pressure to preserve their good name by behaving herself and catching a good husband. Resistance fighters and radicals have infiltrated Palm Beach society. Russia's new alliance with Cuba brings America to the brink of nuclear war. And Beatriz grapples with her conscience and her heart's desires and must ultimately decide where her allegiance lies and how far she is willing to go to prove it.

The story begins with a prologue featuring Beatriz as an older woman in 2016 that leaves you wondering which of the many men in her life is sending her champagne on the day Fidel Castro dies. Interspersed with Beatriz's adventures are a few more scenes from 2016 that ratchet up the anticipation of discovering how the past storyline plays out, and this book consumed me so much it seriously gave me anxiety. Whenever I had to put it down to go back to real life, I thought about it constantly till I could get back to it. I devoured it.

Blog Tour Review: Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton

From the Back Cover:

After the death of her beloved grandmother, a Cuban-American woman travels to Havana, where she discovers the roots of her identity--and unearths a family secret hidden since the revolution...

Havana, 1958. The daughter of a sugar baron, nineteen-year-old Elisa Perez is part of Cuba's high society, where she is largely sheltered from the country's growing political unrest--until she embarks on a clandestine affair with a passionate revolutionary...

Miami, 2017. Freelance writer Marisol Ferrera grew up hearing romantic stories of Cuba from her late grandmother Elisa, who was forced to flee with her family during the revolution. Elisa's last wish was for Marisol to scatter her ashes in the country of her birth. 

Arriving in Havana, Marisol comes face-to-face with the contrast of Cuba's tropical, timeless beauty and its perilous political climate. When more family history comes to light and Marisol finds herself attracted to a man with secrets of his own, she'll need the lessons of her grandmother's past to help her understand the true meaning of courage.

My Thoughts:

This was one of my most anticipated releases of 2018, and it did not disappoint. I savored this novel of family secrets, star-crossed lovers, and self-discovery amidst the chaotic, paranoid culture of revolution. The Cuba portrayed here is an island of contradictions. Beautiful, evocative descriptions of an island paradise and its proud inhabitants interspersed with moments of horror and acts of war. Decadent wealth and privilege coexisting alongside destitute poverty. A generation of genteel young scholars who become radicalized, whose ideals and hopes for the future manifest in acts of terror and guerilla warfare. Families torn apart by conflict and new relationships born in uncertainty. But above all, this is the story of two women who discover in very different ways what it means to be Cuban.

Elisa Perez, a sheltered, naive society girl living under the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, longing for something more out of life, falls in love with a revolutionary fighting against everything Elisa's family represents: "the haves" who prosper under a corrupt government while the "have nots" live in poverty, the wealthy who benefit from Batista's patronage, though for many his favor was a double-edged sword. Faced with the truth of this dichotomy in Cuba, and her family's role in it, and the ideals her beloved is fighting for, Elisa is compelled to question her life as she knows it and how she fits into this new idea of Cuba that is coming closer to fruition one bloody battle at a time.

Decades later, her granddaughter Marisol Ferrara, visiting a land still under the Castro dictatorship, comes to realize that Cuba is a contrast of the very best of her grandmother's cherished memories and an ugly and dangerous environment where one wrong word can still land a person in jail...or worse. Where beautiful beach resorts and historic homes recall a bygone time when food wasn't scarce and people were free to follow their dreams. The more she sees of the island and her people, the more she is captivated. And yet the more she wishes she belonged there, the more she realizes she never will. And just when she finds a true romance of her own, a connection that fills her with hope for the future, she is harshly reminded that she is not in America, that the freedom to live one's life as one chooses is rarely granted in Cuba.