CONQUISTADORA

Delivering her own novel, Puerto Rican-born Esmeralda Santiago demonstrates familiarity with and affection for her characters —as if she had actually lived this eighteenth-century epic. In a Hispanic accent, the author passionately recounts Ana Cabillas Larragoity’s adventurous life, which took her from her familiar world amid the Spanish aristocracy to a sugarcane plantation in Puerto Rico. In warm tones Santiago recounts Ana’s determination to keep a firm grip on the plantation she acquired by agreeing to share a marriage bed with identical twins who had inherited the land. Santiago’s mellow delivery depicts a suspenseful and sensuous journey filled with compromises and tragic consequences. K.P. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2011]