My Rating: 4.5 stars
I've read all of the books in Chanel Cleeton's Cuban series about the Perez family and have enjoyed each one (though some more than others). Of course, the one that will always be my favorite is the first book from 2018, Next Year in Havana, which introduced us to the Perez siblings and the entire extended family. Though that first book was essentially from the perspective of the third Perez sister Elisa, it did such a great job laying the story groundwork for this fascinating family that by the end of it, I was hoping we would get additional books for each of the other sisters as well. That wish was granted in 2019 when Cleeton published her second book in the series, When We Left Cuba, which is from the perspective of fiery and passionate second sister Beatriz (who, remains one of the most beloved characters from the Perez family saga). After that, as Cleeton indicates in her Author's Note, she took a break from writing about the Perez sisters and instead, came out with 2 novels about the lives of 2 different Perez ancestors — the sisters' aunt Mirta Perez in The Last Train to Key West and their cousin Rosa's grandmother Marina Perez in The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba. With her newest novel (which published this month), Cleeton returns to the Perez sisters, this time giving us eldest sister Isabel's story with Our Last Days in Barcelona.
Picking up essentially where When We Left Cuba ended, Our Last Days in Barcelona has Isabel heading from Palm Beach, Florida to Barcelona in Spain to locate her sister Beatriz, who is involved in dangerous intelligence work with the government. Once there though, Isabel finds herself partnering with an unlikely ally, Beatriz's friend Diego, with whom she eventually forms a close bond. But that's not all — in Beatriz's apartment, Isabel discovers a photograph of herself at barely 2 years old, sitting with her mother Alicia Perez in a Barcelona cafe meeting with a mysterious man — though when Isabel asks her mother about the photo, she vehemently denies ever having been in Barcelona. While looking for her sister, Isabel also unearths additional fragments of the story behind the photograph, which eventually changes her life in profound ways. In an alternating timeline between present day (1964) and the past (1936), the story of Isabel's mother Alicia as well as her father Emilio's cousin Rosa unfold. Later, both timelines intertwine as Isabel faces some of the same struggles and family expectations that her mother did 28 years ago — in the end, will Isabel choose the same path her mother does or will she follow her heart instead?
In this novel, Cleeton does the same wonderful job as she did with her previous 4 novels conveying the historical context related to Cuba, though this time, it's the country's relationship with Spain and the civil war that occurred there that provides the backdrop for Isabel's and Alicia's stories. One of the reasons I like reading historical fiction is to learn about historical time periods, events, people, places, etc. that I didn't know about, which has certainly been the case with Cleeton's works. Though the Perez family is fictional, Cleeton has done such a great job developing these richly nuanced characters (especially the Perez women) that I couldn't help feeling as though I was reading about a real family (as mentioned in my review of the first book in this series, Cleeton herself is Cuban-American and actually wove in some of her own family's history as well as experiences fleeing from Cuba into the Perez family story). Each time I read one of Cleeton's books featuring a character from the Perez family, I feel like going back and re-reading Next Year in Havana all over again (the only thing holding me back from doing a re-read of any book is my overflowing TBR and a dogged determination to get through every single book on the list), since that's the book that kicked things off and first introduced us to the family.
Speaking of the characters— up until this point, my favorite Perez sibling was Beatriz and while I still love her dearly (especially her fiery and defiant personality), I've also come around to Isabel too now and consider her a favorite as well. I also appreciated how we were given additional insight into Alicia as a character and the background of some of the things that happened in her life during her youth that eventually shaped the woman she became later (especially in the context of her role as wife, mother, and Perez family matriarch). I'm not sure whether Cleeton will write another book about the Perez siblings (my guess is yes, as there is still one more Perez sister's story left to tell — youngest sister Maria's), but having followed this fictional family from the beginning, there's no doubt that I will want to read that book as well (if / whenever it comes into being). While technically it's not necessary to read the previous 2 books about the Perez sisters in order to read this one, I do recommend doing so only because you get the full background of the family history — which, for me, makes a huge difference in terms of reading experience. Even if Cleeton's next novel won't be about the Perez sisters specifically, I'm pretty sure she will incorporate another character from the Perez family into it — identifying the connection between the characters in each of her books to the ones in the original story (as well as to her other books) is part of the "fun" of reading her novels, at least for me.
Received ARC from Berkeley Books via Edelweiss.
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