This book was beautiful and tragic, a story that grabbed my heart and would not let go! Between Here and Gone by Barbara Ferrer is a book that needs to be on your TBR list. Check out more about the book and read Tina’s Thoughts. Make sure to enter the giveaway for your chance to win a paperback of this book!
Between Here and Gone
Barbara Ferrer
Genre: New Adult
Release Date: January 12, 2016
In 1959 Cuba, Natalia San Martín was nothing short of a princess: sheltered, pampered, and courted by her very own prince, a childhood friend turned lifelong love. All that changed on the fateful New Year’s Eve when Fidel Castro and his followers seized control of the country, with tragic consequences for not only the island, but Natalia herself.
Five years later, in 1960s New York, she’s known as Natalie Martin―living a life that’s bleak, but thankfully anonymous. However, when the enigmatic Jack Roemer offers her a job writing the memoir of a starlet on the brink of self-destruction, she sees not only opportunity, but unexpected echoes of a fairytale long forgotten.
As she knows all too well, however, the prettiest façade can hide the ugliest of truths― and peeling back the layers of someone else’s past forces Natalie to confront her own.
“Ferrer has created a story that’s breathtaking in its scope, and a heroine whose strength will leave readers in awe.” -Publishers Weekly Starred Review
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Between Here and Gone is powerful story of love, loss, and finding yourself in the midst of the chaos. This book was nothing like I expected and everything I needed to read in this story. Every once in a while you find a story that paints such a vivid experience, one that captures your attention and takes you someplace you didn’t expect. This book was just that. I don’t read much in terms of historical fiction (this books takes place in the 1950s and 1960s). I am more of a contemporary girl but this one was captivating. Barbara Ferrer is an incredible writer. Her story evokes emotion and her words paint a picture that you can literally see as you read. The descriptions and language in this story allows your imagination to picture every detail in beautiful technicolor. I loved how when Natalia daydreams, you are sucked right in with her, seeing the colors and smelling the air. This is a gift in the writing world and the ability to capture the senses in a story is spectacular!
Natalia is quite a character. This story goes from past to present during the first part of the story, allowing the reader to put the pieces together, understanding who she is and what has happened. She is an old soul, one who has lost tragically and endured the harsh realities of the world she lives in. It is even more of a stark contrast when you see who she was in Cuba, a princess of society, and where she is in New York, a woman desperate to make it on her own and face life’s cruelty in isolation. At times I forgot how young she was. Everything that happened in her life seems to have jammed into so few years. You see the reflection of her pain and loss in how she views the world around her. Reading this book in her POV allows the reader to understand the gravity of what she experienced and the way it resonates with what is happening in the present.
There is a romantic storyline, one that is well adapted to the story. I appreciated that she experienced so many types of love and romance, one thread that is so beautifully written for who she is. It is not rainbows and butterflies. It is messy and full of heartache and hope. Yet the romance is not what I took away. I loved that she had love in her life in different ways, but the story is about Natalia. It is about a young woman who learns who she is and what she wants. It is about a struggle to find her soul in the wreckage of her life. The more you learn about this young woman the more you cheer her to find peace and happiness. The emotional journey you walk with Natalia has some hard aspects to deal with. The cruelty of humanity she has experienced is harsh and leaves a nasty mark on who she is. Her growth and adaption to a new world in this book embodies the resilience of humanity. She is a beautiful character and I loved her story!
To celebrate the release of Between Here and Gone, Barbara is hosting an awesome giveaway! Enter this Rafflecopter Giveaway for your chance to win one of 10 Paperback copies of Between Here and Gone. Simply follow the instructions listed and you will be entered for your chance to win. Don’t miss out! Good luck!
Barbara Ferrer is a first generation, bilingual Cuban-American, whose young adult debut, Adiós to My Old Life was Romance Writers of America’s 2007 RITA® winner for Best Contemporary Single Title Romance as well as being named to the 2009 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults list by the ALA. Her latest novel, When the Stars Go Blue, a contemporary retelling of Bizet’s Carmen, was released by Thomas Dunne Books and was honored as the first place YA Novel: English Language at the 2011 International Latino Book Awards.
A native Floridian, Ferrer now makes her home in the Pacific Northwest, thriving amidst the rain and cooler weather, finding it the perfect writing environment.
This sounds like a great book for my bookclub!
Yes! It was a wonderful read!