THE LATINA BOOK CLUB

The Latina Book Club is celebrating Valentine’s and Galentine’s Days all week long. Each day we will feature a new Latina romance author for your reading pleasure. Enjoy and remember to Read Latino Lit and Read Romance. DID YOU KNOW?! Romance buyers also read mystery, general fiction, cooking/food books, young adult, and erotic fiction. MEET CARIDAD PINEIRO. Caridad was born in Havana, Cuba, and settled in the New York Metropolitan area. She attended Villanova University and got her juris doctor from St. John’s University.  She is the first female partner at an intellectual property firm in mid-Manhattan. That’s her day job.  Caridad is also a multi-published and award-winning author whose love of the written word developed when her fifth grade teacher assigned a project – to write a book that would be placed in the school library. She has been hooked on writing ever since. In 1999, she was published by Kensington’s Encanto line, ...

      It’s Valentine’s Week and here at The Latina Book Club we believe in celebrating love and romance every day of the year with family, friends and lovers.   Our celebration can be as simple as hugging a niece and nephew to giving chocolate covered cherries to our favorite aunt to dinner for two in bed to reading a romance novel. And we love romance novels!  We’ve been reading them since high school and they continue to be our favorites because of the guaranteed happy ending.  And, it certainly helps that romances come in all categories -- suspense, paranormal, historical, science fiction, etc. – so the thrill is never gone. The Latina Book Club is happy to welcome award-winning romance writer Mia Sosa as our Valentine’s Day guest blogger , who shares with us her thoughts on romance and why February 14 is just another day in her house. And for your reading pleasure, we’d like to share some of the romances on our shelves by ...

    Once again the New York Times failed to name any books by Latinos or about Latinos on their annual list.   Hence, we here at The Latina Book Club have created our own list of powerful books we read in 2013.    All the books are about Latinos, but not all books are written by Latinos.   We are open-minded, after all.   Some books are oldies, some are new, some are children’s, some are not.   All are worth reading .   So here for your reading pleasure is The Latina Book Club’s First Annual Books of the Year 2013 .      Happy Reading and Happy Holidays!   PS—Books make great stocking stuffers!   --mcf       BOOKS OF THE YEAR (in alphabetical order by title) 8 WAYS TO SAY I LOVE MY LIFE by various authors   (collection) ALMOST WHITE: FORCED CONFESSIONS OF A LATINO IN HOLLYWOOD by Rick Najera ASK MY MOOD RING HOW I FEEL by Diana Lopez (YA) BIRDS OF PARADISE: HO...

It was standing room only last night at the 15th Annual International Latino Book Awards sponsored by Latino Literacy Now and held at the Instituto Cervantes in New York City during BookExpo America.  Actor Toni Plana was the Master of Ceremonies.   There were 190 winners!  Some of the night's most notable winners included: Sandra Ramos O'Briant whose THE SANDOVAL SISTERS' SECRET OF OLD BLOOD took first place in Best Novel, Historical Fiction-English and Best First Book, Fiction. Another double winner was Carmen Tafolla's REBOZOS for Best Poetry Book-Bilingual and Best Arts Book-Bilingual. Reyna Grande's THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US won for Best Latino Focused Nonfiction Book. Cecilia Velastegui's MISSING IN MACHU PICCHU won for Best Novel, Adventure or Drama. Melinda Palacio's HOW FIRE IS A STORY, WAITING won for Best Poetry Book - One Author, English. and Founder of Las Comadres Para Las Americas Nora Comstock's  COUNT ON ME: TALE...

     MEET CARIDAD!    New York City.  Join us on Tuesday, August 21, at the Barnes & Noble Bookstore in the Citicorp Building at 6:30pm, 2nd floor, Learning Center (through Music section).  We are going to talk Sin Hunters, books, writing and mojitos! “ THE LOST is a fascinating tale of surprising discoveries, intense passions and unique supernatural abilities. ” --Single Titles reviews  I am happy to announce August’s Book of the Month, THE LOST, by my friend and author, Caridad Piñeiro . She is an inspiring dynamo: a lawyer by day, a writer by night, weekend and whenever she can fit her writing time in. Caridad began writing romances with Latino characters for Kensington’s Encanto line. Now, years later, she is writing paranormals, vampires (her Calling series is immortal!), romantic suspense, etc. And, yes, she still incorporates Latino characters in her writing. THE LOST is the first book in Caridad’s new Sin Hunters series ...

   Join Las Comadres and La Casa Azul Bookstore on September 18 at the Brooklyn Book Festival, Booth #125.  Here is the list of Latino authors scheduled to appear at the booth: 12:00pm - 2:00pm Alicia Anabel Santos Ana Galan Dahlma Llanos Figueroa Sergio Troncoso Toni Plummer Torrey Maldonado Yuyi Morales 2:00pm - 3:30pm Caridad Pineiro Carmen Mojica Fabian Charlie Vazquez Daisy Martinez Justin Torres Sofia Quintero 3:30pm-5:00pm Charles Rice-Gonzalez Esmeralda Santiago Gloria Rodriguez Peggy Robles Alvarado Festival Site Address:  Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201 Public Transportation: 2, 3, 4, 5 to Borough Hall; R to Court Street A, C, F to Jay Street/Borough Hall For more information, visit http://www.lacasaazulbookstore.com/ or http://www.brooklynbookfestival.com/ .  

   The Latina Book Club is excited about Caridad Pineiro's new Sin Hunters series.  Actually, she has two new Sin series.  Learn all about them below.  And check out her new book trailer for THE LOST, by clicking here .  THE LOST will hit the book stores on July 26. Q: Congratulations on your new series—The Sin Hunters. Tell us about the Light and Shadow hunters and this new world you’ve created for us. How many books will there be? Will Bobbie and Adam be recurring characters? I’m very excited about this new paranormal series because it’s steeped in the history of the Americas, filled with characters with amazing powers and very sexy and romantic as well. The premise of the Sin Hunters is that the Hunters are a race that has existed on this planet for millennia, gathering energy and possessing a wide range of abilities due to that power. From shapeshifting to travel at the speed of light, the Hunters possessed incredible powers that they have kept t...

The Latina Book Club is Celebrating Men this whole month.  Today, we are joined by author Caridad Pineiro and her latest hero, Bill Santana.  He's definitely one worth reading about.  And to check out the book video, click here .   Happy Reading.  And, as always, Read Latino. by Caridad Pineiro I like writing characters that don’t fit the mold of what you expect. Bill Santana, the hero in my July release THE FIFTH KINGDOM, is just that kind of character. A Cuban-American CIA Agent, Bill is working on a joint FBI-CIA Task force that is monitoring for terrorist activities. Bill loves his country. He has risked his life to keep it safe, but in all that time, he has never risked something just as important: his heart. When you first meet Bill, he is what you would expect of someone in such a vital and demanding position. Strong. Silent. Professional. A loner.  But as I wrote THE FIFTH KINGDOM, it came to me that there was so much mor...

     I only intended to write the one novel as a romantic comedy spoofing vampire clichés. -- author Marta Acosta She may have thought she was going to write one book, but Marta Acosta has written four in her popular—The Casa Dracula Books—series. Marta has even been featured in Latina magazine a couple of times; the latest this January. The Latina Book Club invites you to join us as we chat with Marta about vampires, family, writing and social networking. Read on. Q: Why vampires? A: I’m a humorist and one of my techniques is to take a theme to its extreme. I think I was watching some sci-fi movie and there were no Latinos. I said, where are the Latinos in outer space? Why don’t we see Latinos in vampire movies? I started the first novel on a whim and the vampires became an analogy for “other” and being outside mainstream culture. Q: Where did Milagros de los Santos come from? I love her name. Did you always know she was going to be a series? ...

            I usually try to visualize the scene in my head before I write it. This way I play it over and over,  or rewind and move it in a new direction before I actually sit down to write the seen.                    ---Caridad on writing Q:   You are a lawyer, mother, wife, writer, lecturer, speaker, organizer. How do you find time to do everything? What are your secrets on time management? A:   My family teases me that I plan spontaneity, but the truth is, I do keep to a loose schedule of what I do every day. That means that I try to write every day, but also leave time for relaxing and hanging out with my family. I also tend to multi-task, so I may watch television while writing or working on projects. Q:   You helped Harlequin launch their Nocturne line with your first book in the Calling series, DEAT...