Where There Was Fire A Novel John Manuel Arias by John Manuel Arias instant download after payment.

A lush & lyrical debut novel about 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

“Every page is a masterclass in how to wrap a reader inside of a book. Simply put, this book will make you want to re-read it just to spend more time with the writing.” — Debutiful

MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2023: CrimeReads, Debutiful, Library Journal, Zibby Mag, The Mary Sue, & 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, the future of Teresa Cepeda Valverde's family is changed forever.

Now, twenty-seven years later, Teresa & her daughter Lyra are still 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 & the bitter ghost of her mother, Amarga, is unable to reconcile the past. What unfolds is a story of a mother & daughter trying to forgive what they do not yet understand, & the mystery at the heart of one family’s rupture, steeped in machismo, jealousy, labor uprisings, & the havoc wreaked by banana plantations in Central America.

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

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John Manuel Arias is a queer, Costa Rican American poet & writer. He is a Canto Mundo fellow & alumnus of the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop. His prose & poetry have been published in PANK, The Rumpus, F(r)iction, Joyland Magazine, & Akashic Books. He has lived in Washington D.C., Brooklyn New York, & in San José, Costa Rica with his grandmother & four ghosts. Where There Was Fire is his first novel.