Emília, whose knowledge of the world comes from fashion magazines and romance novels, dreams of falling in love with a gentleman and escaping to a big city. Luzia also longs to escape their little town, where residents view her with suspicion and pity. Scarred by a childhood accident that left her with a deformed arm, the quick-tempered Luzia finds her escape in sewing and in secret prayers to the saints she believes once saved her life.
But when Luzia is abducted by a group of cangaceiros led by the infamous Hawk, the sisters' quiet lives diverge in ways they never imagined. Emília stumbles into marriage with Degas Coelho, the son of a doctor whose wealth is rivaled only by his political power.
In Recife, Emília must hide any connection to her increasingly notorious sister. As she learns to navigate the treacherous waters of Brazilian high society, Emília sees the country split apart after a bitter presidential election. Political feuds extend to the countryside, where Luzia and the Hawk are forced to make unexpected alliances and endure betrayals that threaten to break the cangaceiros apart. But Luzia will overcome time and distance to entrust her sister with a great secret—one Emília vows to keep. And when Luzia's life is threatened, Emília will risk everything to save her."
Hi Guys, really sorry there has been a long gap between reviews. The whole Corona thing threw me for a loop. But we will now be back to normal regular reviews.
This book is well-written if overly long, tending toward a slight bloat of historical fact. Though the story is interesting even compelling, it's also dark, tragic, and contains a lot of gruesome, brutal violence.
The story and the characters, especially the two sisters, but other side characters too, where highly interesting. I wanted to know more about them and fully understand what they where going through, their motives and backstories. But despite the incredibly long nature of this book, here is a strange and unexplainable distance between the characters and the readers. I didn't feel like I knew any of them, even after the book had ended. I found it difficult to really connect with the characters.
I wasn't especially fond of Emilia or Luzia and I think part of that came from the split perspective nature of the book, wherein it switched from Luzia to Emilia and back again. I felt as though every time I was just warming up to one of them, the book split and went to the other and by the time I returned to the first I had also returned to a state of not caring. So in the end it didn't really matter what happened to them in my mind. I was also a bit frustrated we didn't get to learn more about some of the secondary characters like Antonio and Degas. However, ultimately, the biggest problem I had with this book was the there was really almost no action after Luzia's "life change" (to keep it spoiler free) in the early first quarter/third of the book. I kept on going, hoping something would happen to hold my interest or endear the characters to me but I just never got there.
I really enjoyed the setting of 1920's, 30's Brazil. It is something I am not knowledgeable about at all and was excited to learn more about. You do get a very good idea and feel for the time and place. I would say that was my favourite point of the book. I was truly impressed by the knowledge of the history and culture of 1920's/1930's era Brazil that the author presented.
A quick note about the writing style, I enjoyed it but didn't find it anything to write home about. There where a few sentences and phrases that really stood out but most of the time it was pretty basic. Just an overly long book. Would have been better, with more emotional punch, if the word count had been reduced.
Age Rating 14+. Some quite brutal violence, marital rape, threat of sexual assault.
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