A Cuban American woman searches for her long-lost mother and fights to restore a beautiful but crumbling Art Deco home in the heart of Havana in this moving, immersive new mystery, perfect for fans of Of Women and Salt.
In 2019, newly widowed baker Mercedes Spivey flies from Miami to her native Cuba to care for her ailing paternal grandmother. Mercedes’s life has been shaped by loss, beginning with the mysterious unsolved disappearance of her mother when Mercedes was a little girl. Returning to Cuba revives Mercedes’s hopes of finding her mother as she attempts to piece together the few scraps of information she has. Could her mother still be alive?
33 years earlier, an American college student with endless political optimism falls deliriously in love with a handsome Cuban soldier while on a spontaneous visit to the island. She decides to stay permanently but soon discovers that nothing is as it seems in Havana.
The two women’s stories proceed in parallel as Mercedes gets closer to discovering the truth about her mother, uncovering shocking family secrets in the process . . .
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Writer, translator and college professor, Teresa Dovalpage is a Cuban transplant firmly rooted in New Mexico. She is the author of twelve novels, among them the Havana Mystery series, three short story
collections and four theater plays. She lives with her husband, one dog and too many barn cats.
Blog in English Blog in Spanish
Giveaway to Win 1 hardcover copy of Last Seen in Havana (Open to USA Only)
My thoughts: This was a really interesting and moving story about family secrets and finding the truth of who you are and where you come from.
Mercedes travels back to Cuba, where she grew up, to see her grandmother, who raised her after her mother disappeared and her father died. There has always been questions about what happened to her parents but her grandmother never answered them before.
This time she is determined to get her answers, the family home is falling apart and her grandmother isn’t doing well. She’s invited her friend along for the trip and she’s going to track down her extended family to see what they know too.
As the story unravels, we learn not only what Mercedes finds, but also the story of American Sarah Lee, who falls in love with Cuba and Joaquin, but starts to see through the socialist paradise she’s supposedly living in. Mercedes learns some hard, sad truths, and struggles with them. Ultimately her quest for the answers she’s needed her whole life is redemptive and bittersweet. A moving, intelligently written story.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
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ramblingmads 
Thank you so much for featuring my book and your kind words! Muchas gracias.
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