THE LATINA BOOK CLUB

   "We're hung up in the middle, with no place to go." They don't want us here, in the land of the Yankees and in Puerto Rico they deny us our heritage. Creativity: it's the strength, the power, it's healing. Creativity was my salvation in prison because it kept me from becoming a vegetable or a psychopath. It opened worlds up to me where I could time travel with the power of my mind because of the anguish to be free, out of that canary cage.                                                                                          ...

   Best known for her memoir, WHEN I WAS PUERTO RICAN, Esmeralda Santiago conquered the crowded events room last night at the 86th Street Barnes and Noble. Esmeralda began her book tour for CONQUISTADORA in Puerto Rico last week. If you missed her last night, not to worry she will be back. Esmeralda will be at the Brooklyn Book Festival on September 18, and at El Museo del Barrio on September 28. For more information on Esmeralda visit her on http://www.esmeraldasantiago.com/ . Below are pictures from last night’s booksigning.  Esmeralda was happy to take pictures with me and my fellow Comadres, as she is a comadre herself.  (For more information on Las Comadres, visit http://www.lascomadres.org/ .) And do come back on August 1, for our review of CONQUISTADORA. ---mcf Comadres Julia, Raquel, Esmeralda, Maria. Esmeralda speaking about new book. Store sign.  

   PRECINCT PUERTO RICO: BOOK ONE A Luis Gonzalo Novel By Steven Torres Thomas Dunne Books “Revenge is pointless. It’s like the candy the kids eat at the fiestas patronales—it tastes sweet at first, but it dissolves as you eat it and leaves you empty.” “Can a gandule arrest a Metropolitano ?” This book had me at “Puerto Rico.” I admit it: I am a little biased for all things Puerto Rican, and this book does not disappoint. In fact, it reminds me of Tony Hillerman’s Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels in that the hero solves the crime because he knows his people, he knows his town. Same can be said of Sheriff Luis Gonzalo. Luis Gonzalo is the Sheriff of Angustias, a small town whose whole police force consists of six officers and one squad car. Gonzalo is in Rincon, one of the bigger towns on the island on family business, when there is a ship wreck and bodies are washing up on shore. He jumps in to help rescue the victims and stumbles upon a...