Author: Karen

The Price of Paradise by Susan López Rubio

Blurb: In a city as corrupt as it was luxurious, those who dared to dream were bound to pay the price.

Havana, Cuba, 1947. Young Patricio flees impoverished Spain and steps into the sultry island paradise of Havana with only the clothes on his back and half-baked dreams of a better life. Blessed with good looks and natural charm, he lands a job as a runner at El Encanto—one of the most luxurious department stores in the world.

Famous for its exquisite offerings from French haute couture to Arabian silks, El Encanto indulges the senses in opulent extravagance. It caters to visiting Hollywood stars, rising politicos, and prerevolutionary Cuba’s wealthiest power players, including the notorious mobster César Valdés.

Falling in love with the mobster’s young wife, Gloria, is suicide. But Patricio is irresistibly drawn to the beautiful girl with sad eyes, a razor-sharp intellect, and a penchant for both Christian Dior’s clothes and Einstein’s theories. Within the walls of El Encanto, anything seems possible, even a love that promises to heal them and a desire that thrums with the mambo beat of the city itself.

In a reckless love affair that spans half a century, Patricio’s and Gloria’s lives entwine time and again, challenged by every twist of fate—for in a world of murder, betrayal, and revolution, those who dare to reach for paradise seldom survive unscathed.

After reading this story, I did a little research. The department store, a central venue in the story, was actually a real-life place. El Enchanto, a landmark department store in Cuba pre-Castro era, was a real place and I was intrigued that the author picked a real place to set her story. I have no idea if the reason for the fire matches what Rubio wrote but it inspires me to use a real-life event and weave a story around it. I liked the story that much more after discovering El Enchanto was a real place and that secured the five-star rating for me.

The story begins with Patricio getting off the boat and stepping foot in Havana, Cuba. He traveled from Spain where things were dire and he wanted a chance at a better life. Penniless and with the clothes on his back, he spent the first night in Havana on the beach. He walked to a store that was rumored to help refugees. There he meets a monster of a man that happens to be from the same part of Spain as himself and lo and behold, he used to date his sister. He makes the mistake of calling her a whore, not realizing until too late that was his sister and he nearly gets he gets a small beating. But after the man discovers Patricio is from his homeland he relents and they end up being best friends. Patricio then moves into the “bedbug” motel with his new best friend and his roommate and soon, the three are inseparable and are known as the three musketeers.

Patricio is a likeable character. He’s a smooth talker and can sell water to a duck. He has a talent for making people believe they need the product he’s selling and he soon proves his worthy and catches the attention of the owner of El Encanto. After proving to the owner that he can sell anything to anybody, he gets a job as a “cannonball”, or a runner, for the store. There he meets a pretty elevator operator who flirts with him and he is happy and content in his new life.

Until he meets Gloria. It’s love at first sight and he feels like he won the lottery.

And then he finds out Gloria is married. But not just married, but married to an infamous mobster. The very mobster who very nearly shot him in the head for very nearly ruining his shoes.

The story progresses and soon Gloria realizes she’s in love with Patricio and they gradually begin to find ways to be together without anyone finding out. Because if her mobster husband, César Valdés, finds out about them, he will surely kill them both.

Gloria has a very unfortunate story. She was coerced into marrying César Valdés and she found out too late how ruthless he was. Her marriage caused her father to have a heart attack and die which caused her mother to become so overwhelmed with grief she slipped into a zombie-like state to escape her inner hell. Gloria despised her husband but she didn’t dare leave. She is on the verge of killing herself when she finds out she’s pregnant and that seals her fate, she will never leave her daughter in the hands of her ruthless husband.

The story is rich and sweeps you into the late 40’s, early 50’s era. It’s a story of abuse and two people desperate to find happiness any way they can get it, even at the risk of their own lives. Just as the two loves birds agree to run away together, César Valdés’ sister finds out about Gloria’s lover and their plans and threatens to go to César Valdés who will surely hunt Patricio down and kill him. Gloria loves him too much for that to happen and she doesn’t show up at the rendezvous.

Patricio, heartbroken and thinking Gloria has played him and really loves César Valdés leaves Cuba and goes to Florida taking Nell, the elevator operator with him and they marry. The story continues, with Gloria and Patricio living separately but longing to be together.

It’s a story of bad timing – our two main characters are constantly being thwarted and not allowed to be together. And given the circumstance, it had to happen the way the author wrote it. I felt sorry for both Patricio and Gloria and I understood their reasoning for the things they did. It didn’t make any less frustrating, but I understood it. The author did a really good job of teasing the reader – giving the characters just enough rope to pull them out of the pit of despair before knocking them back over the edge again.

I definitely recommend.

Goodreads comments:

I thought I was going to read a good historical novel. It ended up being a dime store romance devoid of any substance. Great for 14 year old girls.

Wait, what?? “Devoid of substance?” How can you say this book, where it follows two characters who should be together but can not be because of circumstances beyond their control set in pre-Castro Cuba at a real-life department store that actually burned down “devoid of substance?” This story is about abusive relationships and finding love where you least expect it. It’s a story about respecting the one you love so much that you’re willing to sacrifice your own happiness so that the other one will continue to live and be free. I’m quite confident that a 14-year old girl would not fully appreciate the myriad of emotions this story exudes as these characters come up with ways to survive their crappy lives and the decisions made on their behalf by rich, powerful people. This story is about survival and cultivating a love so powerful few people actually experience it. And other than referencing the political climate at the time and a large part of the setting taking place at El Encanto, I’m not sure I would classify it as a historical novel. The author takes real-life aspects and weaves a beautiful, sad, powerful story of two people desperate to find a way to freely express their love for one another.

Goodreads comment:

This book was kind of annoying for me. The writing style was lush and descriptive, and I did enjoy the early parts. I just got so continually frustrated with Patricio though, that it really ruined my enjoyment of the story. All my sympathies went with Gloria, and frankly I thought she deserved way better than anything she got, including Patricio.

In particular, Patricio’s treatment of Nely, or really any woman that wasn’t Gloria was fairly appalling. And the fact that he KNEW it, really just made it worse, not better. Acting in ignorance is unfortunate but somewhat understandable, but when you know you’re hurting someone and you do it anyhow is inexcusable. Also it was really rash. Gloria had agreed to go away with him, shouldn’t the note have triggered something in his head? that maybe something had happened? Even seeing her kiss Ceasar is no excuse for running off to go be with Nely. How is that fair to her? “oh I couldn’t have my first choice so I guess you’ll do. Also I’m going to pull you out of your country and even knowing your’e a communist, take you to a dictatorship country and know terrible things could happen to you if you’re caught doing activist work” And then the second he finds out about Gabriel, brings her back, and knowingly involves himself back in Gloria’s life, even though he has a new life. And then tried to uproot her again, to go on the run as a fugitive? Frankly he deserved Nely calling the police on him and removing themselves from his life. And then while he might not have gotten married again, he still continued to have relationships with other women, while making no attempt to get over Gloria. How is that fair to any of them? Maybe if he kept it all to one night stands, but he admitted he lived with several for years. If you’re not actually ready to move on, stop getting involved with people who will think you are. I didn’t even care about the happy ending by the end, because I was fed up with all of his behavior

I agree, sort of. Though it wasn’t great the way Patricio treated Nely, it was also realistic, unfortunately. There are many people out there that choose their “second choice” in life. It doesn’t make it right, and it can be wrong on so many levels, but it’s also what happens to millions of people every day. If the love of our lives is unattainable, for whatever reason, do you really expect people to go through life without any love, affection or sex of any kind? To imply that Patricio was less of a human being because he moved on with his life when he realized the love of his life wasn’t going to be his is fundamentally human. It’s sad, but human. To me, it almost seems like the author of this comment is projecting and not really looking at Patricio’s character arc. To me, if the author had decided that Patricio needed to be a love sick hermit for the rest of his life, that would have disappointed me. It’s possible to settle in life and experience different types of loves in one’s life. Just because it’s not the “love of their life” doesn’t mean it’s any less impactful – life must go on. To stop one’s life and not live it because of one person is a truly sad and disappointing choice.

The ending was a bit of a surprise though I was secretly rooting for something like it to happen. It’s never too late to love truly and fully. And I’ll leave it at that.

“I See You” by Mary Burton

Blurb: FBI special agent Zoe Spencer uses skeletal remains to recreate the faces of murder victims through sculpture. Though highly scientific, the process is also sensitive and intimate; she becomes attached to the individuals she identifies, desperate to find justice for each.

As Zoe examines old remains, she sees a teenage girl looking back at her—the victim in a cold case from over a decade ago. Zoe wants nothing more than to tell this young woman’s story and to bring her killer to justice.

Zoe’s case leads her to the victim’s hometown and to homicide detective William Vaughan, Zoe’s on-again, off-again lover. As the two become more involved in the case, they quickly realize that it isn’t as cold as they first believed: someone’s still out there hunting women. And with more women gone missing, time’s running out. Can they work together and stop this madman before he kills again?

This is not my first Mary Burton book. In fact, I’ve read quite a few of her books so far. I See You is the fourth criminal profiler book in the series. I will absolutely continue reading Mary Burton as I’ve quite enjoyed her books.

The story opens with a prologue of Nikki McDonald acting on a tip left for her on her website. Nikki used to be a popular news anchor (?) but she pushed one of her stories too far and was fired. In response, she set up a Crime Connection set up for the purpose of cold/hot case tips into stories so that she could earn her another job in television.

Acting on the tip, Nikki goes to a storage unit to find a “gray trunk.” She finds the trunk and what she finds inside the trunk kickstarts the story into high gear.

The story then jumps to the killer. He is sitting on the bed in a motel room eating a piece of pizza and talking to the woman he just killed in the bed next to him.  It was a brutal killing and very personal. Not a lot is revealed about the killer, of course, it’s only chapter one, and you’re left wondering who is this guy and why did he just kill a random hooker?

And that’s it. We’re never inside the killer’s head again and it felt like unfinished business by putting that scene in the story. I would have like to see more of the killer as that would have helped me understand his/her motivation behind his/her actions. It felt out of place and forgotten.

Nikki calls the police about the contents of the trunk. Enter Zoe and Vaughan. Zoe is called in because of her expertise of reconstructing faces to make identifications and Vaughan is a local cop. They already have a history together as Vaughan attended one of Zoe’s seminars and they had a brief fling.  The contents of the trunk turns out to be a young woman that had been missing for a number of years and her case eventually turned cold. Zoe and Vaughan figure out who the young woman is and they go to see the girl’s sister to get some more information about the victim and her disappearance.

Haley is the victim’s sister and her reaction to the news of her sister’s remains being found seems odd. So Zoe and Vaughan start digging a little deeper and soon, we’re immersed in this family’s lies and secrets.

A few more chapters in and something big happens at Haley’s home and both her and her daughter, Skylar, go missing. As they work on solving the case, it’s soon apparent this is tied to the girls’ remains in the trunk and to the girl the killer murdered at the beginning of the story.

Here’s why I gave it three stars:

LIKES:

• I like how I didn’t really see the killer coming until the very end.
• I like that Zoe and Vaughan have become a couple. Sort of.
• I think the sex scenes in the book were juust enough allowing some imagination on the reader’s part.
• I like how we saw the case from different perspectives instead of one perspective.

DISLIKES:

• I don’t feel like the killer was a logical choice, though I didn’t see it coming, it also didn’t feel plausible to me, at least, without some foreshadowing. I would have like to see more of the killer and his/her interaction and tendencies – I think I might have bought the killer a little more easily.
• I didn’t care for Nikki McDonald’s character in the story. I understood why Burton put her in the story but the story opens with Nikki and then she is sprinkled throughout the story. I think I would have liked it better if she hadn’t been in the story at all. Or just played a very minor roll in the story. Instead, her parts felt forced and quite frankly, annoying and too much time was spent inside her head.
• The rationale of the killer was weak. I get crazy, but usually crazy people have a reason for doing what they do, not just for the sake of crazy. Something put that person in a very dark place, I would have liked to see a bit more of the killer’s backstory, or at least a reason, for why he/she turned out the way he/she did.
• The pacing of the story was all over the place. Though I liked different perspectives, I would have liked sticking to primarily one perspective as opposed to it jumping from character to character in this story.
• The plot felt weak and this was not one of the better Burton stories, in my opinion.

GOODREAD COMMENT:

First of all, Zoe was a Mary Sue character. She was a dancer, FBI special agent, artist, sculptor and a profiler. All of these are full time profession by themselves, and our heroine was all of them. The next problem I had was, even after having capability for being all this, she was dumb. She didn’t follow the necessary leads, she barely stumbled onto the killer’s identity, she confronted a killer without backup, and basically, the book would have been no different if she had not been in it.

Secondly, this book had very visible lack of research. Even after just watching crime tv shows, I had better knowledge than what was portrayed in the book. Leads that should have been obviously followed were ignored, forensic procedures were a joke, procedures and laws ignored when convenient, protocols not followed, confessions thrown out the window by lawyers or confessions acquired in front of lawyers (I don’t know which one is worse) … basically, the book was a mess.

This commenter hit the nail on the head. This also bothered me about Zoe’s character. She was a dancer, FBI special agent, artist, sculptor and a profiler. It all seemed too much for one character. How did one go from being a dancer, or an artistic type, to an FBI special agent? I’m not saying it can’t happen but it seems to be a stretch. The next problem I had was, even after having capability for being all this, she was dumb. Again, I agree. I feel like some of Zoe’s choices were dumb and happenchance. There were a few times I rolled my eyes. Especially at the end when she confronts the killer with no backup.

Really? That’s like the girl running down into a dark basement in a horror movie.

I’m not sure about the research part of the story, I’m not an expert in procedures and protocols, but I agree with this commenter again – it felt disjointed and unrealistic how they treated Mark Prince, the prime suspect.

I gave this story three stars instead of two because I have liked Burton’s stories up to this point and I know she’s capable of doing more. I definitely wouldn’t recommend this book as your first Burton read but just know, if you read this book, it’s less than satisfying when compared to her other work.

WARNING: if you read past this point, it contains spoilers.

Continue reading “Book Review: I See You by Mary Burton” →