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The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes - Softcover

Cleeton, Chanel

 
9780593816905: The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593816900 ISBN 13: 9780593816905
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

A 2025 Goodreads Choice Award Nominee

"This captivating story is an ode to book lovers!"—Woman's World

A mysterious book with a legacy spanning from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day unites three women—and their secrets—in this unforgettable novel from New York Times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton.

London, 2024: American expat Margo Reynolds is renowned for her talent at sourcing rare antiques for her clients, but she’s never had a request quite like this one. She’s been hired to find a mysterious book published over a century ago. With a single copy left in existence, it has a storied past shrouded in secrecy—and her client isn’t the only person determined to procure it at any cost.

Havana, 1966: Librarian Pilar Castillo has devoted her life to books, and in the chaotic days following her husband’s unjust imprisonment by Fidel Castro, reading is her only source of solace. So when a neighbor fleeing Cuba asks her to return a valuable book to its rightful owner, Pilar will risk everything to protect the literary work entrusted to her care. It’s a dangerous mission that reveals to her the power of one book to change a life.

Boston, 1900: For Cuban school teacher and aspiring author Eva Fuentes, traveling from Havana to Harvard to study for the summer is the opportunity of a lifetime. It’s a whirlwind adventure that leaves her little time to write, but a moonlit encounter with an enigmatic stranger changes everything. The story that pours out of her is one of forbidden love, secrets, and lies… and though Eva cannot yet see it, the book will be a danger and salvation for the lives it touches.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Chanel Cleeton

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One

Margo

London

2024

She was late.

Not late by normal standards-when Margo Reynolds glanced at the secondhand Cartier watch on her wrist, she was relieved to see that she had five minutes before her appointment-but late by her standards. Even when she accounted for the unpredictable London commute in her calculations-Would the Tube be delayed? Would the sidewalks be filled with tourists gawking at the sights? Would her heel get caught in one of the street grates requiring a dash into Harrods to purchase a replacement pump?-she hadn't considered the fact that all three of those things would happen. So despite the cold, damp December day, she was now sweating beneath her coat collar, her legs transitioning to that stride somewhere between a purposeful walk and a full-out run as she fairly propelled herself to her meeting by sheer force of will.

Something wet fell on her head.

Margo looked away from the street in front of her for a moment to gaze skyward, praying that she was wrong, that they weren't headed into the first snow of the season.

That five minutes was feeling more and more tenuous now.

Another wet drop of snow-if it could even be called that, considering the watery mixture-hit her square in the face.

She should have called a car.

"Is it snowing?" a woman exclaimed.

Margo winced at the delighted shriek beside her, at the way the word "snowing" seemed to travel through the crowd with the same unbridled glee as a celebrity sighting in front of a double-decker tour bus.

London might not have been Margo's home by birth, but it was perhaps more powerfully by choice, and yet, on days like this when the throngs of tourists overwhelmed the sidewalks, she had to admit she had a love-hate relationship with the place. But weren't cities like that? They didn't make it easy for you to love them. No, they demanded sacrifice, that you hustle for the pleasure of calling them home. And just when you'd had a spectacularly bad day, when you thought to yourself, Maybe I should move somewhere quiet, somewhere easy, they dispensed a bit of magic your way in the form of a whimsical holiday shop window, or the perfect meal, or an unexpected connection with a stranger, ensuring you were really and truly ensnared.

London had its hooks in her whether she liked it or not.

Margo turned down the street in front of her, and then she saw it, up ahead on the right, exactly the way her assistant Bea had described it when she briefed her on the meeting's particulars.

There was no number, no name over the entrance, just a simple, unassuming black door with a doorman posted out front, his impeccable dark coat fairly daring a drop of snow to besmirch it.

Margo took a deep breath, steadying herself, checking her watch once more.

Three minutes to showtime.

Hardly ideal, but at least she couldn't be accused of being late.

She walked up to the club's entrance, fighting the urge to smooth down her hair in case the drop of snow had done some damage.

The minor inconveniences of the day disappeared in an instant; the insecurities that nagged at her in the late hours of the night receded into the background of her mind. This was no place for impostor syndrome, no time to second-guess whether she would be taken seriously because she was young, and a woman, and many of her clients tended to look down their noses at women, particularly young ones.

Margo had earned every ounce of her reputation, and in these moments right before she had to impress, she buoyed herself with the knowledge that she had fought hard to get where she was, and no one could take that away from her.

She gave her name at the door, her American accent somewhat incongruous in such a bastion of all that seemed to represent the enclave of British society. There were clubs like this throughout the city, catering to a clientele that often wanted to exclude. Margo would always be an outsider here, but she'd come to welcome the position rather than shy away from it.

If Margo had set the meeting, she would have chosen a place on her terms where she could control the setting, where she would feel comfortable and in charge, but the client had pled discretion when requesting her presence at his club, and sometimes allowances were made, especially when six years after she'd finished grad school, student loans still needed to be paid.

It was always like this before an introductory meeting with a client. Sourcing valuable items-art, jewelry, antiques, and the like-wasn't war, but given some of the negotiations she'd been a party to, the sting of defeat-and swell of victory-sometimes it seemed like it.

When you ran your own business, when you were your own brand, your successes and failures rested on your shoulders. Sometimes it was empowering, like Margo had the potential to decide her future. Other times, the pressure threatened to tear her down. She'd tried as hard as she could to keep the overhead of running Reynolds Acquisitions as low as possible. Her assistant Bea was her only staff, the office space they rented in Chelsea a necessity for the image it presented to her clients. Much like the watch on her wrist and the outfit she'd carefully selected.

The man at the door handed her over to another man, who bid her to follow him as he led her through the club's entrance and down a narrow, wood-paneled hallway flanked by framed paintings of-former members, perhaps? They certainly looked like the type who would frequent a club such as this one, their disdain dripping through the oil and canvas. The club's interior was as small as it appeared from the outside, but then again considering the neighborhood in central London, real estate was ever at a premium even for the obscenely wealthy. The smell that Margo associated with antique shops, luxury goods, and exclusive clubs like this one instantly assailed her. It was the scent of history, and money, and the realization that beneath the layers of wood, citrus, and smoke, there were secrets and scandals lingering under the surface.

They reached the end of the hallway, where another man wearing a suit greeted them. He took Margo's black pea coat from her, slipping it off her shoulders and whisking it away with the practice of someone who had done it thousands of times before.

There was a quiet efficiency to the club, a whisper of wealth that had found its way in her ear since the first moment she had approached the lacquered door.

Her new heels clicked against the wood floors.

Margo took a deep breath, and then another, the stiffness in her neck and shoulders loosening some. It had been ages since she'd been to a Pilates class, given the demands of her recent travel schedule, and the telltale tightness reminded her of the need for a break.

The choice of meeting place was beginning to paint a clear picture of how connected the client was. Today's dossier was thinner than she would have liked, but sometimes that was part of the territory.

Besides, the fee the client was dangling in front of her was staggeringly high-as was the cost of living in London.

Margo clasped her hands together, trying to stave off the nervous energy that had lit its way through her body. Her fingers skated across her ring finger, ready to twist her engagement ring and wedding band around only to come up bare.

Divorce was staggeringly expensive, too.

Occasionally, the secrecy in her line of work was warranted-a high-profile client eager to obscure their identity-and other times, it was more a product of a dramatic imagination, a cloak-and-dagger desire that fueled the hunt for the prospective buyer. Some of her clients seemed to enjoy the search more than the attainment of the actual item, whereas others shot off quick one-line emails with little concern...

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2025
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593816900
ISBN 13 
9780593816905
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
353
Kontakt zum Hersteller
preigu GmbH & Co. KG
mail@preigu.de

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