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Book of the Month Outside Links: Book Author Publisher
Additional Conversation #1 Outside Links: Book Author Publisher
Additional Conversation #2 Outside Links: Book Author Publisher
August 2014 Book of the Month
The Amado Women
By Désirée Zamorano
Published by Cinco Puntos Press
ISBN-13: 978-1-935955-73-3
Mercy Amado raised three daughters and became a teacher with little help from her drunken, philandering husband. Now she watches helplessly as those sisters drift apart as adults. Investment manager Celeste and artist Nataly barely speak; Sylvia lives in wealthy suburbia with an abusive Anglo husband. When Sylvia’s marriage crumbles, the Amado women test the strength of their family ties.
The Amado Women is the story of four very different women, linked by birth struggling to reconnect. Mercedes Amado has raised and watched her three daughters grow into women. Celeste, fiercely intelligent and proud, has fled her youth and family in Los Angeles to financial independence in San Jose. Sylvia has immersed herself in the world of her two young daughters, while Nataly, the baby, waits tables in an upscale restaurant by night and works on her textile art by day.
Four women struggle for their piece of the American Dream, but will it evaporate when confronted with family tragedy?
August 2014 Additional Conversation
Cuba in Splinters: Eleven Stories from a New Cuba
Edited by Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
Published by OR Books
ISBN-13: 978-1-939293-48-0
Think Cuba, you’re likely to think bearded revolutionaries in fatigues. Salsa. Sugar cane.
Rock ‘n’ roll, zombies, drugs – anomie and angst – do not generally figure in our mental images of a country that’s assumed an outsized place in the American imagination. But fresh from the tropics, in Cuba in Splinters – a sparkling package of stories we’re assured are fictional – that’s exactly what you’ll find. Eleven writers largely unknown outside Cuba depict a world that veers from a hyperreal Havana in decay, against a backdrop of oblivious drug-toting German tourists, to a fantasy land – or is it? – where vigilant Cubans bar the door to zombies masquerading as health inspectors. Sex and knife-fights, stutterers and addicts, losers and lost literary classics: welcome to a raw and genuine island universe closed to casual visitors.
The collection includes stories by four Latina writers: Jhortensia Espineta, Lien Carrazana Lau, Polina Martínez Shviétsova, and Lia Villares.
Of Angels, Demons and Chopped Chorizo
By Michael M. Pacheco
Published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN-13: 978-1494747237
Award-winning author Michael M. Pacheco brings his mastery of the thriller and fantasy genres as well as his wit and heart to this collection of the must-reads in Latino folklore and stories of magic.
This outstanding collection of 17 brilliant short stories, each just six or fewer pages in length, provides the chance to absorb an entire story (or two or three) in just one sitting.
Of Angels, Demons and Chopped Chorizo includes four never-before released short stories. Exploring a variety of topics from life and death, love and loss, struggling with being a savant and dealing with ghosts, this collection contains fascinating tales, each one different from the last. These stories are bound to bring a smile to your face, a tear to your eye. There is something here for everyone to enjoy.