Another great book by Nelson De Mille. Suspenseful, fast paced and funny. Could not put it down. Hopefully we will read more books with Mac and Sara as lead characters. Thank you netgalley for giving me the chance to read this wonderful book..

Thank you to NetGalley, Nelson DeMille and Simon & Schuster for the chance to read and review The Cuban Affair before publication.

The Cuban Affair is a look into Cuban-American relations and the lengths that people will go to make good on their promises. It's also a slow-burning thriller with a few twists and turns.

This novel was my first full-length Nelson DeMille, and it won't be my last. Pros- This novel is well written and deeply researched, and I enjoyed the history lesson. The characters are quite realistic and likeable. Cons- The story was a bit slow here and there, and there were sections that were a bit boring if I'm honest. I wish there was a bit more action throughout the novel, but it would have had to have been at the expense of the historical background provided. The ending disappointed me.

All in all, this story was fun, and I hope that we see Mac again one day.

This is an adventure thriller that kept me entertained. The author included a romance, but it didn't quite work for me. It was fascinating to read a Cuban story from an American perspective.

The Cuba Affair isn't my usual kind of book. I read lots of mysteries and some thrillers, but usually not this type of unabashed commercial action packed macho fare. But I'm a sucker for books set in Cuba and I read a few enthusiastic reviews from GR friends, so I thought I would give it a try. This one involves narrator Mac agreeing to go on a trip from Key West to Cuba to help some Cuban Americans recoup money and papers that were hidden at the time of the revolution. As you can predict, things don't go as smoothly as everyone hoped.
So my verdict is that while The Cuba Affair kept my attention, I had lots of unhappy moments along the way:
-I don't like chase scenes, and there's a long long one at the end.
-Cuba is a complicated place, and although the narrator makes this point at the end, the country is mostly depicted in really negative terms, with little regard for the positive or nuanced aspects of the country, and no regard for the American embargo's contributions to some of the country's economic challenges.
-The premise of the story seemed beyond implausible.
-The romance was ridiculous and shallow.
-Something happens towards the end that is treated far too lightly given its moral implications.
I know my reactions sounds prissy. What did I expect? After all, this is unabashed commercial action packed macho fare.
Besides, honestly it wasn't all bad as reflected in my 3 stars "I didn't hate it" rating. I liked Mac's voice and the humour that ran through the book -- including his depiction of a minor character who is an American novelist on a tour in Cuba doing research for a new book. I liked the book's eye on the Cuban American community. I liked getting insight into the American perspective on traveling to Cuba even though it's very different from my Canadian perspective.
But still the bottom line is that this isn't really my cup of tea but it will be many readers' pint of beer.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

3.5 Stars

The Cuban Affair was my first book by Nelson DeMille and I experienced this story along with my Traveling sisters, Norma, Kaceey, Lindsay, Susanne, JanB and Diane.

The Cuban Affair is an entertaining, fun, humorous, political adventure suspense thriller that we all enjoyed reading and discussing our thoughts with each other. This was a first for a couple of us and won’t be our last.

Nelson DeMille does a good job balancing this story with some well researched insight to Cuban/US relations giving us some background to the story along with some good fun humour, sarcasm and action. With a little romance that did have me and a couple of sisters rolling our eyes at. We felt we could've used a little less of that. We all really enjoyed our fun, humorist, sarcastic main character Mac and his colourful, snarky first mate Jack and enjoyed their relationship and they had us chuckling a few times.

I did find the middle to drag a bit and the romance didn’t help with that at all. It got a little sluggish for me and I found myself rushing through it to get to the action and when it did, it came quite fast for me and had me thinking what just happened. I would of liked it to have been a bit better paced.

We all are interested to see if we are in for some more adventures for Mac and Jack in the future from Nelson DeMille and will have my eye out for that.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster Canada and Nelson DeMille for the opportunity to read and review an advanced copy.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars!

This was my very first introduction to this author and this book has definitely enticed me to read more novels by Nelson DeMille in the future.  I loved our main character Mac and his witty sense of humor.

THE CUBAN AFFAIR by NELSON DEMILLE is an amusing, intriguing, fun, and an action-filled adventure suspense novel that had me engaged, entertained, and interested throughout this entire book.  Although, I wouldn’t say there was too much action or suspense for the first ¾’s of the book though it was the last ¼ of the book where the action and suspense picked up considerably and then was extremely intense and exciting to read.  What I really loved about this book in a whole though was that it was filled with a lot of witty camaraderie between the characters which was an enjoyable, well-needed, and fun aspect to this novel after reading some really emotional and heavy books lately.    

NELSON DEMILLE delivers a well-written and engrossing story here that I thoroughly enjoyed as it was filled with lots of sarcasm and witty narrative from our great characters that had me smiling and chuckling to myself a few times.  The storyline also included quite a knowledgeable an interesting background into Cuba which I thought was very fascinating and easy to understand.

To sum it all up it was an interesting, fun, quick and easy read with an intense and satisfying ending. Would recommend!

Publication date:  September 19, 2017

Thank you so much to my fellow Traveling Sisters for another awesome reading experience!

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster Canada and Nelson DeMille for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

3.5 stars! This was an intriguing story with great characters, a suspenseful plot, intense action and an interesting history lesson.

This was my first book by Nelson DeMille and I really enjoyed his writing. Witty humour flowed throughout the story and had me smiling and giggling to myself. I really loved the main character, Mac.

I enjoyed learning about some of the history of Cuba/USA relations. I had little knowledge of Cuban history and politics so I worried that this novel might be over my head, but DeMille creates an extremely vivid story providing the perfect amount of history and background to keep an uneducated reader (like myself) engaged and following along.

While I did enjoy the storyline, I felt at times it dragged. For the first 65% of the novel, I found myself anxiously waiting for something big to happen. The suspense continued to build throughout the first half of the book, but there was no real action to keep me glued to the pages until close to the end. I was pushing myself to read faster to get to the “good” parts. When the action finally did come, it definitely delivered - it was intense and almost overwhelming at times.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it. It has sparked an interest in me to look into reading DeMille’s other novels.

A big thank you to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster Canada and Nelson DeMille for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review!