Our Last Days in Barcelona

OUR LAST DAYS IN BARCELONA by Chanel Cleeton is an adult, story of historical fiction focusing on the Perez family that runs parallel to and crosses over with the author’s WHEN WE LEFT CUBA. SOME BACKGROUND: The Perez family are Cuban immigrants who fled to America during the Cuban Revolution in 1960. Second born daughter Beatriz Perez would be recruited by the CIA for her political ideology, in an effort to infiltrate the anti-Castro organizations. Eventually Beatriz would find herself in Barcelona Spain, and her family hasn’t heard from their sister in close to three weeks. Told from three first person perspectives (Isabel, Alicia, and Rosa) following two timelines 1937 and 1964, OUR LAST DAYS IN BARCELONA focuses on Isabel Perez’s search in 1964 for her sister Beatriz Perez, who is currently working undercover for the CIA. Isabel Perez, married to a man she does not love, journeys to Spain to search for her missing sister where she will meet and fall in love with her sister’s American counterpart Diego. Returning to 1937 Cuba, just prior to Spain’s involvement in the Second World War, Isabel and Beatriz’s mother Alicia Perez’s marriage is at risk of imploding. With her two year old daughter Isabel, Alicia Perez heads to Barcelona Spain, where she will stay for an extended visit with parents and younger sister Consuelo, a visit where Alicia will fall in love with someone else. At the same time, Alicia’s best friend Rosa’s marriage has been rocked by the death of her husband Gonzalo, a man who left Cuba to fight for the Spanish during the revolution of 1934 but Rosa’s world continues to crumble as her in-laws refuse to acknowledge her existence never knowing that the man with whom Rosa has fallen in love, is a man close to their hearts. OUR LAST DAYS IN BARCELONA is a detailed, dramatic and emotional story of family and relationships, betrayal and heart break. The premise is intense; the characters are flawed and dysfunctional; the romances are tragic and real.