Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this audiobook.. Enjoyed the narrator. Great job narrating this story. The characters very likable.

Loved it!!

Here's why:
Mexican culture + magical realism + slow burn, star-crossed love story + no clichés

I know how infuriating it is when any Mexican/Latin American writer is straight away compared to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I won't do that But the beginning of the novel reminded me straight away with Love in the Time of Cholera because at the very beginning Fulgencio (I love that name), a son of mexican immigrants, is scanning the obituaries in the newspaper wishing to see the man who married the woman he loved dead (There are other spoilers to confirm my impression but I'm not going to share those). And when Fulgencio realizes that the source of all his sorrows is a "maldición" or a curse that has befallen his family long ago and made love impossible to sustain. Then we are whisked on an adventure with Fulgencio and some amiable ghosts to lift the curse.

But Ruiz is a talent of his own.. He spins the magic throughout the story in a firm way without any conveniences masquerading as part of that magic. The story holds firm and is quite enjoyable throughout.

The audiobook, however, has one great flaw. It was too slow. I started playing it at 1.25x the speed half way through. While galley audiobooks are played solely on the NetGalley app, the app still wants for much though to facilitate the listening experience. And although I liked the narrator, Johnny Rey Diaz, and despite the fact that the narrative parts are supposed to be neutral to allow the characterization to come to life, it was flat at times. It came to life only on the tongues of characters.

I'm very curious about what Rudy Ruiz might write next. I'm hoping to see a Mexican/Latin American story outside the canon of migrancy.

Thank you so much NetGalley and Blackstone Audiobooks for this experience.

I enjoy magical realism, and this book was a joy! I loved the rollercoaster ride that was Fulgencio and Carolina's love story. It was full of ups and downs and really made for a dramatic romance. The characters had strong personalities that sometimes help and sometimes hinder themselves and each other, but it made the reader root for them all the more!

I was excited to reach for this audiobook as a highlighted new Latinx release. What a beautiful tale of love, rejection, class and passage of time in Mexico and the US.

While I don't usually reach for books with ANY kind of fantasy or magical realism elements, this one hit it out of the park. In this novel, our main character Fulgencio Ramirez attempts to win back the love of Carolina Mendelssohn - the love of his life from thirty years ago whose husband has just died. Fulgencio and Carolina come from very different social classes and are separated by a border, literal and metaphorical, which is another theme thoroughly examined in this novel. The writing is vivid and imaginative in a way that managed to transport me straight to La Frontera.

In addition to the fascinatic magical tale, narration in the audiobook version is truly brilliant. I loved how the narrator was able to accentuate the right moments and bring raw emotions to life.

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.