Correa, Armando Lucas

Will appeal to listeners seeking a fast-paced, frightening psychological novel, full of tension and twists. Recommended for fans of Rachel Hawkins, Ruth Ware, and Alice Feeney.

This slow-build suspense novel keeps the tension rising as readers are drawn ever deeper into Leah’s claustrophobic world. And while the ending feels a bit rushed, the twists are enjoyable.

Correa’s novel stands out in its attempt to trace the lingering individual and social consequences of wartime trauma in postwar Germany and revolutionary Cuba. It can be hard to keep track of all the characters and their intersecting lives, but this moving, if relentlessly bleak history of one family should appeal to fans of multigenerational stories set against the backdrop of global events.

People en Español editor-in-chief Correa bases his debut novel on the real-life account of the ill-fated 1939 voyage of the St. Louis, delivering an engrossing and heartbreaking Holocaust story; his listing of the passengers' names at the end of the book adds to its power. [See Prepub Alert, 7/18/16; an ALA Buzz Book.]