New Releases by Margarita Engle

The heroine is Carmen Peregrin, daughter of an assassinated Cuban revolutionary. Brought up in the U.S., she goes to Cuba to meet her half-brother, Camilo, who tries the next day to escape to the U.S. by raft. He is captured and jailed, and the novel follows Carmen''s efforts to obtain his release by a bribe, money for which she raises among rich relatives in Spain.

A journey into the past reveals the terrifying truth that destroyed a family. A California farm wife leaves her husband and children to search for the truth about family members caught up in the turmoil of the Castro revolution. She encounters much more than she expected, as her family''s tragedy becomes her own personal drama, cast in a modern mystery play of good versus evil, angels versus demons. An account of the imprisonment of her great uncle Gabriel, once a Castro supporter, swept away by the so-called "Secret War" against the Cuban peasants early in the revolution, sets the mood for this lyrical novel told in the Latin American style of magical realism. The magic, but all too real paradox, is a Cuba where the splendor of natural beauty coexists with moral evil.