Author Description

"In 1935, a seventeen-year-old American school-girl stays a few months in Havana and is swept up in the violent events that marked the assumption of dictatorial power by Fulgensio Batista, the despot who preceded Fidel Castro. Esperanza Ramierez, the bilingual daughter of an American industrialist attends a ball at the famed Havana Yacht Club, where she meets and falls in love with a Cuban Naval Cadet, Carlos Mesa. Unfortunately, Carlos is a secret member of the Cuban Youth Movement, a radical organization determined to overthrow the government. The battle erupts and the lovers confront torture, murder, and chaos as gunfire and the smell of cordite fill the nights. When they learn of the dictator's plan to kill the final leader of the resistance, Antonio Guiteras, they race off to warn him. The fates of the two lovers and Cuba itself hang in the balance as they desperately race into the country on the night when Cuba was lost."--Back cover.