The Most Beautiful Girl In Cuba- Chanel Cleeton

The Most Beautiful Girl In Cuba is the fourth novel in Cleeton’s “Cuba” series, linking the Perez family through the expanse of many decades. In this novel, we are introduced to the earlier family members in this saga, namely Marina Perez, who shows where the strong, courageous of the Perez family roots stem.

The Most Beautoful Gorl In Cuba is prompted off of real events from Cuba’s fight from Spanish oppression in 1895. This story interlaces the stories of three women fighting for justice, each in their own right. Grace Harrington is fighting an upstream battle to be taken seriously as a female journalist in the already fiercely competitive New York newspaper industry. She must prove herself in order to land her dream job, ultimately finding herself swept up in a story shining light onto the plights of Cuba.

Our Perez matriarch, Marina, longs to do her part in the fight for justice. She gets involved by covertly delivering messages as a courier for Cuban revolutionaries in Havana. It is with her aid, that an attempt to free nineteen-year-old, Evangelina Cisneros from the notorious casa de Recogidas, is able to put into play.

“They call this the Casa de Recogidas. It is a place for forgetting women society does not wish to face, for punishing those who have committed perceived slights against the Spanish, for condemning those who have dared to cast off the yoke of societal expectations. For those who fight for Cuba’s independence.”

With Evangelina’s beauty and fair complexion, she could be just what is needed to call the Americans into action against the Spanish. She may also be the story that will catapult Grace’s career.

Cleeton’s take on the real-life events of the reconcentrado camps and the notorious casa de Recogidas is truly harrowing. The conditions these women were forced to endure were simply heinous. Innocent women were thrown behind bars and forsaken.

Not wishing to give too much away, I will end it with this. Yet again, Cleeton brings history to life through her vivid story telling and engaging characters, namely strong, courageous women. Her sincere love of Cuba is evident in every novel in this series. She does her ancestors proud as she unveils Cuba’s tumultuous history from a fresh perspective. Viva Cuba Libre 🇨🇺

If you’re like me, and live for historical fictions told from unique perspectives of strong female protagonists, this one is for you.