Costa Rica, 1968. When a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Companys most lucrative banana plantation burning all evidence of a massive cover-up, the future of Teresa Cepeda Valverdes family is changed for ever. Now, twenty-seven years later, Teresa and her daughter Lyra are still picking up the pieces. Lyra wants nothing to do with Teresa, but is desperate to find out what happened to her family that fateful night. Teresa, haunted by a missing husband and the bitter ghost of her mother, is unable to reconcile the past. What unfolds is a story of a mother and daughter trying to forgive what they do not yet understand, and the mystery at the heart of one familys rupture, steeped in machismo, jealousy and greed. Where There Was Fire brims with ancestral spirits, omens and the forces of nature. John Manuel Ariass extraordinary debut novel weaves a brilliant tapestry of love lost and found again and, ultimately, redemption.
