The Spanish Daughter

Upon news of her father’s death in Ecuador, Puri travels from Spain to South America to meet her father’s new family and make a fresh start at the cocoa estate she has just inherited. As a chocolatier, Puri had become an expert at turning cacao beans into the extremely popular hot chocolate drink and truffles Europeans craved. In South America, she finds that the cultivators of these beans know little of the products created from them. Someone is upset about Puri’s claim to the estate and murders her husband in an attempt on her life. Every member of the family, plus several estate workers, might have wanted her dead, but who? Puri decides to pretend to be her husband while she investigates the matter. Narrator Frankie Corzo calmly and evenly lays out Puri’s thoughts and deductions as she teases out the killer. Corzo’s Castilian pronunciations will transport listeners. With this novel, Hughes (The Sisters of Alameda Street) explores an exciting historical period in her native Ecuador while considering gender roles and colonialism in South America.