AUTHOR: Laura Riñón Sirera
PUBLISHER: Editorial Planeta
GENRE: Contemporary Novel
READER’S NAME: Michael Mahler
DATE: June 16, 2020

Amapolas en Octubre by its title and cover illustration would seem like a lighthearted novel to read on a weekend at the beach but as one enters this book it becomes a rich story of imagination and reality, love and mystery and a woman’s self realization. It also will require a reconsideration of the title and illustration.

Carolina is the main protagonist of these pages, though not the only narrator.  The narration is shared by others, family, an employee and an all seeing 3rd person.  Her parents, Paul and Barbara, an adventurous literary couple, Paul an English writer, and Barbara a literary translator have raised their children in a world of books and imagination.

Paul is now lost at sea, and Barbara, now lies trapped inside her body in a hospital where Carolina tries to break through to her mother via what she knows best, books and memories. These same memories are also painful.  Alas, such is life.

Carolina, is the owner of a book store named JO after the Jo of Little Women.  Over these 30 chapters she shares the pages with many fascinating characters, real and imagined, as well as passages and references from the works of Louise May Alcott to Shakespeare and Cervantes, Dickens to Hemingway.  Throughout the novel there are many literary cameos that delight one with surprise, the biggest being the realization that the title itself is from another’s work of art.

This is a unique and exuberant tale, of family, and friends written in an elegant prose. As one moves from chapter to chapter one is already anticipating the pleasure of what is coming. As Carolina reads to her mother, she is on a path to her own discovery. And that make us think of our own connections and the confluence of our imagination and reality. We, like Carolina, play roles acquired from the books we read, the works of art we see, the persons in our lives, from our parents to the men and women we encounter, love and lose along the way.

This reader believes that this lovely work is important and worth introducing to the U.S. market. It is truly a universal work, reaching across cultures.