Where there was fire

Manuel, Arias, John

£10.99

A novel of love, murder and greed set in Costa Rica.

In stock

Publish Date: 05/09/2024

Description

Where there was fire, ashes remain . . .

Costa Rica, 1968.

A deadly fire rips through the American Fruit Company’s most lucrative banana plantation, destroying all evidence of a massive cover-up.

That same night, Teresa Cepeda Valverde’s mother is murdered, and her husband vanishes into the darkness.

Decades later, as a hurricane twists through the streets of Barrio Ávila, Teresa’s estranged daughter Lyra begins to piece together the mysteries lost in the blaze. In her desire to find the truth of her own family’s rupture, she uncovers a web of devastating betrayals, stoked by machismo, jealousy and greed.

Where There Was Fire brims with ancestral spirits, omens and the forces of nature. John Manuel Arias’s extraordinary debut novel weaves a brilliant tapestry of love – lost and found again – and, ultimately, redemption.

‘A haunting, operatic saga of family, history and place. . . An utterly original, unforgettable tale of family that will sear a place in the reader’s soul’ – Xochitl Gonzalez, bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming

An ambitious debut novel . . . The combination of legend and dream sequences, characters spellbound by hallucinations, toxic odours and huge cane toads, adds to the sense of a society ill at ease with nature and itself’ – Times Literary Supplement

Additional information

Weight 202 g
Dimensions 197 × 131 × 18 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

288

Language

English

Edition

1st paperback ed

Dewey

813.6 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K