SAN MIGUEL de ALLENDE: A PLACE IN THE HEART Expatriates Find Themselves in Mexico What if you could reinvent yourself at any age? You don%u2019t have to go back to school, and it doesn%u2019t require a religious conversion. Many people--hundreds of thousands--have used nothing more than geography and an open mind to bring it off. What do the terms Living Abroad, Living in Mexico, and Expatriate really mean? If you think it might be time to take a harder look, use this book to explore the possibilities of an exciting new life in Mexico. Live their experiences as 32 people confess why they left the United States and reveal how their new life is more fulfilling than they ever dreamed. The author gives you an intimate glimpse into the lives of people who have lived in San Miguel de Allende for as little as 18 days and as long as 50 years. They talk candidly about why they came, what obstacles they found in their path, how it changed their lives. What were the unexpected benefits? Does it work for everyone? What happens when it doesn%u2019t? How else would you meet these people? This book is like sitting down for a heart-to-heart conversation with people who made it happen. %u201CAn attentive and richly interesting series of interviews with North Americans who have made lives for themselves in another country, another town.%u201D -Tony Cohan, author of On Mexican Time and Mexican Days, other books and numerous articles. %u201CSan Miguel de Allende: A Place in the Heart is entertaining, enlightening, and informative. Like the legendary Studs Terkel, John Scherber lets his subjects speak for themselves and adds reflections where needed.%u201D -Wayne Greenhaw, winner of the 2006 Harper Lee Award, author of My Heart is in the Earth, and more than a dozen other books.

Robert de Gast, author of the popular The Doors of San Miguel de Allende crosses the thresholds of homes in this historic Mexican town to discover their remarkable outdoor paradises--sunstruck, lushly colored courtyards, patios, and breezeways--that lay beyond them. Come with de Gast as he guides viewers to parts of San Miguel visitors seldom see and offers glimpses into the daily lives and traditions of those who live in this unique place. Established in the sixteenth century as a Franciscan mission, the lovely town of San Miguel de Allende has been an art and artisanal center for nearly two centuries. Its cool summers and mild winters have more recently made it a popular destination for vacationers from North America and Europe. A part-time resident of San Miguel since 1991, Robert de Gast is an award-winning photographer and a widely published writer. His avocations include hot-air ballooning, which he pursues in Mexico, and sailing, which he does for part of the year on the East Coast of the United States.

"The author gives you an intimate glimpse into the lives of people who have lived in San Miguel de Allende for as little as 18 days and as long as 50 years. They talk candidly about why they came, what obstacles they found in their path, how it changed their lives. What were the unexpected benefits? Does it work for everyone? What happens when it doesn't."--Page 4 of cover.

Thinking about living in Mexico? Perhaps you've heard it's cheaper, warmer, and the culture is rich. Places like San Miguel de Allende have support communities of expatriates (about 8,000) to make you feel at home. But this is a big change. Thinking about it can keep you awake nights. You ask yourself: *How do other people make this work? *How do I avoid making a mistake? *What are the real costs of living there? *How do I arrange for healthcare and an English-speaking physician? *If I buy a house what am I really getting? *How do I transfer and handle my money intelligently? *Is the U.S. media telling the truth about crime in Mexico? What if you were prepared? What if you knew the answers to these questions and many others before you decided to try it? This book provides answers to the vital questions you must ask to make a move like this successfully. Plus, it also provides lists of resources for further research.

Tony Cohan’s On Mexican Time, his chronicle of discovering a new life in the small Mexican mountain town of San Miguel de Allende, has beguiled readers and become a travel classic. Now, in Mexican Days, point of arrival becomes point of departure as—faced with the invasion of the town by tourists and an entire Hollywood movie crew, a magazine editor’s irresistible invitation, and his own incurable wanderlust—Cohan undertakes a richer, wider exploration of the country he has settled in. Told with the intimate, sensuous insight and broad sweep that captivated readers of On Mexican Time, Mexican Days is set against a changing world as Cohan encounters surprise and adventure in a Mexico both old and new: among the misty mountains and coastal Caribbean towns of Veracruz; the ruins and resorts of Yucatán; the stirring indigenous world of Chiapas; the markets and galleries of Oaxaca; the teeming labyrinth of Mexico City; the remote Sierra Gorda mountains; the haunted city of Guanajuato; and the evocative Mayan ruins of Palenque. Along the way he encounters expatriates and artists, shady operatives and surrealists, and figures from his past. More than an immensely pleasurable and entertaining travel narrative by one of the most vivid, compelling travel voices to emerge in recent years, Mexican Days is both a celebration of the joys and revelations to be found in this inexhaustibly interesting country and a searching investigation of the Mexican landscape and the grip it is coming to have in the North American imagination.

Twenty Centavos Does an artist really see things differently? Painter Paul Zacher, preparing for a gallery show in the Yucatan, is unwillingly drawn into a murder investigation in his home town of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. A prominent antiques dealer has been shot in the head, and a twenty centavo coin found in his mouth. Zacher draws on the help and expertise of his Mexican girlfriend, Maya Sanchez, and his retired detective friend, Cody Williams, to comb the prosperous expatriate community for clues as he tries to stay out of the way of the police. The action ricochets from the heartland of colonial Mexico to the steamy jungles of the Yucatan, as Zacher inches closer to the killer, only to find himself marked as the next victim. Twenty Centavos is the first book in the Murder in Mexico mystery series.

An American writer and his wife find a new home—and a new lease on life—in the charming sixteenth-century hill town of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. When Los Angeles novelist Tony Cohan and his artist wife, Masako, visited central Mexico one winter they fell under the spell of a place where the pace of life is leisurely, the cobblestone streets and sun-splashed plazas are enchanting, and the sights and sounds of daily fiestas fill the air. Awakened to needs they didn’t know they had, they returned to California, sold their house and cast off for a new life in San Miguel de Allende. On Mexican Time is Cohan's evocatively written memoir of how he and his wife absorb the town's sensual ambiance, eventually find and refurbish a crumbling 250-year-old house, and become entwined in the endless drama of Mexican life. Brimming with mystery, joy, and hilarity, On Mexican Time is a stirring, seductive celebration of another way of life—a tale of Americans who, finding a home in Mexico, find themselves anew.