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  • Where There Was Fire by John Manuel Arias book cover
  • Where There Was Fire by John Manuel Arias book cover
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Where There Was Fire

by John Manuel Arias

A family mystery rooted in Costa Rica

$16.47 USD
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Awards & Recognition

  • Editorial selection

    GMA Buzz Pick

    Named as a GMA Buzz Pick.

AlbakiReads Editorial

A family mystery rooted in Costa Rica

Set in Costa Rica, the novel links a 1968 fire at a banana plantation to a family rupture that persists twenty-seven years later. Teresa and her daughter Lyra face the consequences of a night marked by a cover-up and the disappearance of Teresa’s husband, while Lyra seeks answers about her family’s past. The story moves between generations and brings ancestral spirits, omens, and the forces of nature into its exploration of secrets, loss, and forgiveness. Its central mystery is bound up with the strained relationship between mother and daughter, as well as the history they struggle to understand.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • For readers interested in multigenerational family stories and family secrets.
  • For readers drawn to mysteries shaped by historical events and a Costa Rican setting.
  • For readers interested in fiction that includes ancestral spirits, omens, and nature as forces in the story.

Themes

Family secretsMother-daughter relationshipsIntergenerational memoryLoss and forgivenessCosta Rican history and setting

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

A lush and atmospheric novel about three generations of a Costa Rican family wrestling with a deadly secret, from rising literary star John Manuel Arias

"An exciting new voice with a prowess for lyricism." ―Publishers Weekly

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A B&N DISCOVER PICK * A GMA BUZZ PICK * MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2023: CrimeReads, Debutiful, Good Morning America, Library Journal, Zibby Mag, The San Francisco Chronicle, and more!

Costa Rica, 1968. When a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Company's most lucrative banana plantation burning all evidence of a massive cover-up, and her husband disappears, the future of Teresa's family is changed forever.

Now, twenty-seven years later, Teresa and her daughter Lyra are picking up the pieces. Lyra wants nothing to do with Teresa, but is desperate to find out what happened to her family that fateful night. Teresa, haunted by a missing husband and the bitter ghost of her mother, Amarga, is unable to reconcile the past. What unfolds is a story of a mother and daughter trying to forgive what they do not yet understand, and the mystery at the heart of one family's rupture.

Brimming with ancestral spirits, omens, and the anthropomorphic forces of nature, John Manuel Arias weaves a brilliant tapestry of love, loss, secrets, and redemption in Where There Was Fire.

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