This twisted tale of a stolen identity will have you spellbound. Melissa, the main character, has only one living relative, an aunt, whom she decided to visit. The trip to Aunt Celia's in northern Maine turns out to be a big disappointment. Upon arrival, plans for her aunt's funeral are underway. Melissa has skipped a semester of college to get acquainted with the aunt she has never met; therefore, the news is devastating. Vera, a college roommate and confidant, previously helped Melissa cope with the loss of her parents. Their friendship lasted through the summer by working together in a resort restaurant. Each was fated to meet a love interest that summer that would last far into the next school year. Melissa's trip to northern Maine and her aunt's palatial estate entangles a web of intrigue and mystery that needs to be investigated. Aunt Celia's will can't be read until it is cleared of an extortion charge; therefore, Melissa is required to stay at the mansion until the will is settled. The employees seem to welcome Melissa to her aunt's home. Larry, the handsome handyman, has a questionable character and a wife that seems to have disappeared. The butler, Sedwig, is a reliable employee who has worked for Aunt Celia for several years but has a deep dark hidden secret. The caretakers, Bevery and Barry, are mainly interested in her aunt's money and do not hide their greed. Their inheritance from Aunt Celia's will is the reason they remain at the mansion.

The story: The Notorious Aunt Celia will have you spellbound. Melissa, the main character, has only one living relative, an aunt, whom she decided to visit. The trip to Aunt Celia's in northern Maine turns out to be a big disappointment. Upon arrival, plans for her aunt's funeral are underway. Melissa has skipped a semester of college to get acquainted with the aunt she has never met; therefore, the news is devastating. Vera, a college roommate and confidant, previously helped Melissa cope with the loss of her parents. Their friendship lasted through the summer by working together at a resort restaurant. Each was fated to meet a love interest that would last far into the next school year. Melissa's trip to northern Maine and her aunt's palatial estate entangles a web of intrigue and mystery that needs to be investigated. Aunt Celia's will can't be read until she is cleared of an extortion charge; therefore, Melissa is required to stay at the mansion until the will is settled. The employees seem to welcome Melissa to her aunt's home. Larry, the handsome handyman, has a questionable character and a wife that has disappeared. The butler, Sedwig, is a reliable employee who has worked for Aunt Celia for several years but has a deep dark hidden secret. The caretakers, Beverly and Barry. are mainly interested in her aunt's money and do not hide their greed. Their inheritance from Aunt Celia's will is the reason they remain at the mansion.

“Impressive . . . [Cristina García’s] story is about three generations of Cuban women and their separate responses to the revolution. Her special feat is to tell it in a style as warm and gentle as the ‘sustaining aromas of vanilla and almond,’ as rhythmic as the music of Beny Moré.”—Time Cristina García’s acclaimed book is the haunting, bittersweet story of a family experiencing a country’s revolution and the revelations that follow. The lives of Celia del Pino and her husband, daughters, and grandchildren mirror the magical realism of Cuba itself, a landscape of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption. Dreaming in Cuban is “a work that possesses both the intimacy of a Chekov story and the hallucinatory magic of a novel by Gabriel García Márquez” (The New York Times). In celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the novel’s original publication, this edition features a new introduction by the author. Praise for Dreaming in Cuban “Remarkable . . . an intricate weaving of dramatic events with the supernatural and the cosmic . . . evocative and lush.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Captures the pain, the distance, the frustrations and the dreams of these family dramas with a vivid, poetic prose.”—The Washington Post “Brilliant . . . With tremendous skill, passion and humor, García just may have written the definitive story of Cuban exiles and some of those they left behind.”—The Denver Post