Azúcar’s Sweet Hope … Her Story Continues

A fictional tale set in the contemporary Caribbean, this second episode of Azúcar’s haunting trilogy picks up several years after the first saga seems to end. This tale continues unraveling the mystical journey of Azúcar Ferrand-St. Jacques (now married and a mother). Howev er, she is still plagued by relentless efforts to find an escape from the historical patterns of exploitation in the island, where she has returned to live with her husband Lucien and their little daughter. Only this time, the abusive exploitation presents itself in a cleverly disguised and sophisticated new form … resort tourism.

Azúcar, now the aggressive and smart regional director of a luxury tourism complex, struggles to resist various oppressions and somehow liberate herself from her own lingering demons from a brutal past. She must also consider the plight of a massive community of exploited workers ensnared in the tentacles of the downside of globalization. Suspenseful twists, memorable characters –many of whom were introduced in the opening saga, plus new ones, convoluted and intriguing personal relationships, a pantheon of ancestral island deities “an bad lo” [“from underneath the water “ = the sacred world of the spirits] all conspire to tantalize the reader with the same intensely seductive beauty of the Caribbean we encountered in the first tale.