If a family saga is told about a mob family's saga, does algebra mean it ceases to be a family saga?

Headstrong teen, Francesca Pacelli, is a mob boss' daughter living in Havana at the dawn of the Cuban Revolution. Rather than leave for the USA, she falls in love with a revolutionary. Her father takes that news so well that he even sells arms to the rebels to get her back. Good thing she grows up to be a mob boss herself.

When I started Hellmann's Havana Lost I had been expecting a more standard crime novel. It took me a while to realise that this was going to be a saga stretching from the 1950s in Cuba to modern day USA. Love and tragedy fill the story to the brim, making for an interesting read. But without a protagonist to follow throughout the novel, I felt a little lost. This was partly because I wasn't prepared for the saga - should have read the blurb I suppose - and partly because there is a lot of setup to the story with Francesca's character.

So as long as you are prepared for the Pacelli family tale of love, loss, and coltan mines, you should enjoy this.

Havana Lost has launched at last. Feedback has started to roll in. And I’m fascinated by how many readers say they are ‘disturbed’ by Frankie Pacelli’s transformation from a young vulnerable likeable girl into—well (spoiler alert averted), what she ultimately became.

My response? She had to.

When you lose the things you love most, it turns your life into a completely different direction. It changes the way you feel about your world. One day the future looks clear and rosy, the next day all hell lets loose and your dreams are destroyed. Today you have a home, a family, a lover, support, freedom. Tomorrow it’s all gone. One minute you’re good. The next day your world falls apart and you’re on the road to something else.

The noir side of revolution

In that sense Havana Lost is the noir version of A Bitter Veil. Everyone who reads Veilloves the fact that Anna is brave, courageous, clear-sighted, and tolerant. In other words, she is a heroine. Some of the other characters in the novel, characters whom you’d least expect, turn out to be heroic as well. In Havana Lost, however, it’s the opposite. People you might want to root for turn ugly. And misfortune claims some of the “good guys” who are or could be heroes.

The unpredictable effects of extreme conflict

That was no accident. The whole point of my so-called ‘Revolution Trilogy’ (Set the Night on Fire, A Bitter Veil, and Havana Lost) is that extreme conflict turns some people into heroes, others into cowards… even evil-doers. That’s what revolution does. It’s not a tidy package where the men (and women) in white hats overcome the black-hatted oppressors and everyone rides into a Technicolor sunset. However noble the cause, however positive the eventual outcome, the revolutionary process is messy, ugly, chaotic, brutal.

People aren’t clear cut either. Very few of us are wholly evil or wholly good. Most of us come in shades of gray: we respond well to some challenges, badly to others. We make good and bad judgment calls. We choose the wrong and right sides, love the wrong and right people, make mistakes, change our minds, change direction, fall by the wayside, commit random acts of  cruelty, as well as bravery, honor and valor.

At the same time, some of us are more resilient than others. Some bend, others break. Most of us muddle along, doing our best to cope with a completely unpredictable future. And we never really know how we react to disaster until it strikes. Would you stay strong or go under? How much pain, danger and loss would it take to drive you to acts of which you’re not proud?

Are you ‘disturbed’?

Actually, I am pleased people are disturbed by Frankie’s evolution, and I’m glad readers are disturbed by the behavior of other characters in Havana Lost who don’t react as expected. I enjoy surprising readers, and they seem to enjoy being surprised. In my view that’s what thriller writing is all about. The unpredictable is more thrilling than the predictable.

If you want a predictable thriller whose characters behave consistently throughout the story arc, step away from the ‘buy’ button! But if you want to read a thriller whose characters are as flawed and human as you or I, you can pick up a copy of Havana Lost here and lose yourself in something subtler.

How would you react if you were Frankie?

Let’s do a straw poll. How do you think you would react in Frankie’s circumstances – would you change and if so, how?

 

Thought you might like to take a look at this. It's called a "Glossi" and it's a short online magazine that you can read at your leisure. Of course, it's about Cuba as described through excerpts from the book. 

 

Just click below, and be sure to let me know what you think. 

 

 

http://glossi.com/LibbyHellmann/31548-havana-lost

 

 

As the description says, Havana Lost is the story of three generations of a family with ties to Havana.  It begins with pre-Castro Cuba in the era of big resorts and lots of American tourism.  It was a time of big lush resorts, free spending and the Mafia.  You can feel that atmosphere as you read these chapters. You can also feel the heat, the music and the tension in the air.  You can feel the revolution building.  I truly was transported to a different world and felt like I was yanked back to mine when my reading was interrupted.

As the story moves through time and we see the next generations of the family, the feeling of being there, Chicago, Angola, Castro’s Havana, are just as strong.  I cared for and was concerned about the characters and what was happening to them.  I worried about them! I rushed through everything else I had to do so I could get back to my reading. The only drawback to this book is that I didn’t want it to end.

Romance,  adventure, lush settings, likeable characters and a sense of history.  

I was given this book by the author for an honest review and I truly appreciated the chance to read it.