“This first novel is a sumptuous, slow, and romantic portrait of a woman in
pre-Castro Cuba ... With colorful and well-developed characters, this novel
is unrushed and well detailed.”
--Booklist Reviews
“Acevedo captures a magical, dreamlike mood ... This multi-layered epic
paints an intriguing picture of pre- and post-Castro Cuba and is a promising
debut for Acevedo.”
--Publishers Weekly
“Acevedo is a fine storyteller ... it unfolds with a leisurely pleasure
that feels like magical realism”
--The Christian Science Monitor
“... a welcome addition ...”
--Library Journal
“Love and Ghost Letters takes a hard look at how closely wedded love
and money are, without turning away from the ugliness of social inequality. The
magic of the narrative is in the weaving of the personal with the public with such
a poetic sensibility and fluidity of style that the reader is completely submerged
into the trials of a Cuban family and the contradictions of Cuban society.”
--Sun-Sentinel
Read the entire article by Elena Machado Saez
“Acevedo, a first-generation Cuban-American, shapes each of her
characters with clear-eyed reverence, guiding their steps in measured, lyrical
prose that is often breath-taking, exquisite.”
--Chicago Tribune
Read the entire article
by A. Manette Ansay
“Acevedo, a first-generation Cuban-American, lyrically
illustrates the changing social, economic and political landscape in this tumultuous
period in Cuba’s history. She has filled her novel with enchanting details,
down to the red, white and blue paper roses at that first society dance and the
recipes Josefina’s nanny concocts to make Lorenzo faithful to his wife.”
--Miami Herald
“The novel’s tone deftly slips between pathos and bathos. Acevedo allows
her characters to wallow in their passionate despair and love, while allowing her
readers to step back and smile at their emotional self-indulgence.”
--New Haven Register
“...a quirky, charming story of filial love...a distinctly Latin mystique
and a style of writing that juxtaposes the mysterious and the mundane.”
--Miami Today
“Love and Ghost Letters is enchanting;
a heartfelt story. It tells volumes about the intimate life and loves of a family in
pre-Castro Cuba. Along the way, it captures, beautifully, the atmosphere and emotions
of a time which, both Cuban Americans and many an American reader, will find both
reminiscent and fulfilling. A great debut.”
--Oscar Hijuelos, author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love