With thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources I’m delighted to have a very special guest post for you today from Terea Dovalpage, author of Last Seen in Havana as part of the blog tour.

In addition, if you live in the US, there is a giveaway further down this blog post to win a hardbacked copy of Last Seen in Havana.

Published by Soho Crime, Last Seen in Havana is available for purchase from Amazon UK and Amazon US.

Last Seen in Havana

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 . . .

A Brick-and-Mortar Character

A Guest Post by Terea Dovalpage

When I lived in Cuba, the Art Deco-style houses built in the mid-twentieth century never failed to intrigue me. I found the elegance and functionality of these constructions fascinating, particularly their stylized appearance and sense of fluidity so different from the colonial-style houses with skylights, heavy oak doors and high ceilings that are prevalent in Havana.

In my novels Death under the Perseids and Last Seen in Havana, the protagonist, Mercedes, grows up in an Art Deco house located in Miramar. (Miramar was, and still is, an elegant neighborhood dotted with embassies and foreign companies’ headquarters.) Mercedes’s father, who had fought alongside Fidel Castro in the mountains, got the house as a reward for his political loyalty in the early 1980s. He lives there with his American wife, Sarah, who vanishes in 1989. And that’s where his daughter Mercedes is raised.

In Death under the Perseids, Mercedes describes her childhood home:

The house, despite its many problems, was an Art Deco villa with geometric mosaics in the kitchen and bathrooms, carved doors and a marble staircase like those you saw in old Hollywood movies. It even had a name, Villa Santa Marta, written in elegant wrought-iron letters over the gate. And it was huge. There was a living room, a formal dining room, an ample kitchen, six more bedrooms and the former servants’ quarters.

Originally, Villa Santa Marta belonged to a family that had left Cuba during the Mariel Boatlift. The circumstances surrounding the identity of its first owner are gradually revealed in Last Seen in Havana as the role of the house becomes more prominent in the story:

It was during a conversation over tea and finger sandwiches that Elena revealed the identity of Villa Santa Marta’s former owners.

“The house was built by a witch named María Estela Sotolongo, who, by the way, is buried on the property,” she whispered, looking around as if the spirit of the aforementioned bruja hovered above them.

Maybe due to the influence of the “witch”—I played a bit with magical realism—the house isn’t a happy place. In Last Seen in Havana, Villa Santa Marta has already developed its own personality, with an evil streak. Mercedes has noticed it:

The house had always had a malevolent aura. It could have been the porthole window above the main entrance, like an evil eye glaring at those who approached, or the dirty gray stucco that had peeled off in many areas, or the ungroomed lawn with weeds as tall as a ten-year old child.

The anthropomorphism of the house takes a tangible form in the portraits of its former owner, spread over in several rooms. Mercedes’s mother, Sarah, watches them with suspicion:

After taking a cold shower (the boiler didn’t work), Sarah continued exploring the house. This time, she spent a whole hour in the library. The room was presided over by the portrait of a fiery-eyed lady in a black pillbox hat. She looked like the woman with the pearl necklace whose picture was over the piano. Only here she seemed sterner, almost threatening, as if she didn’t like to have people around. Sarah shuddered, then laughed. Her imagination was getting the best of her.

The stories of the house and the “witch” intertwine, creating an atmosphere that plays with gothic elements until the end. The end, I have to admit, was determined by the fate of the house. It was not what I had originally planned, but this book taught me that it isn’t only flesh-and-bone characters that slip away from the writer’s grasp. The brick-and-mortar ones do too!

****

I absolutely agree Teresa. Bricks and mortar truly add character and depth to a narrative!

Giveaway

A Hardbacked copy of Last Seen in Havana

Please note that this giveaway is not run by Linda’s Book Bag and is US only.

I am obliged to provide the following information:

*Terms and Conditions –USA entries welcome.  Please enter using the Rafflecopter box here.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data.  I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.

To enter, click HERE

About Teresa Dovalpage

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.

For further information, visit Teresa’s English blog or Spanish blog.

There’s more with these other bloggers too: