ISLAND OF THE WHITE ROSE
A
Novel
R. Ira Harris
Intrigue and adventure, armed struggle and forbidden love
intersect amid the Castro revolution in 1950s Cuba in R. Ira Harris’s novel
ISLAND OF THE WHITE ROSE (Bridge Works
Publishing Co., Aug. 1, 2013, $24.95, hard cover).
With Cuba in the headlines now as power moves from Castro
to a new generation, Cuban-born authorities in the United States have praised
the authenticity of this “gripping story of love, faith, betrayal, and
revolution,” as Florida International University’s president emeritus, Dr.
Modesto A. Maidique, describes it. Guillermo Martinez, co-editor of Cubans: An Epic Journey, calls it “a
good page-turner…that depicts the true story of many Cuban youths who risked
their lives to oust a brutal dictatorship,” that of Fulgencio Batista, only to
find it replaced by another ruthless regime.
Father Pedro Villanueva, 34, the novel’s protagonist, son
of an upper-middle-class Havana family, is initially non-political but agrees
to try to free a parishioner’s son from La Cabaña prison. He and his brother
Alberto bribe guards at the prison, the prisoner is released, but Pedro’s
brother is killed in the handover. Pedro then joins with the underground to
support the Fidelistas fighting in the Sierra Maestra.
Two attractive women of the underground, Dolores Barré
and María Guerra, persuade Pedro first to obtain medicines for the rebels,
later to smuggle arms to them aboard his family’s 40-foot-sloop, The White Rose (named after a poem by José
Martí, a 19th century national hero, in which the white rose
symbolizes Cuba and its brightest aspirations). As Pedro’s involvement with the
revolution grows, taking him into the mountains, gun in hand, his priestly
ethics and his celibacy vows are sacrificed. After Batista flees the country
and Castro’s forces take power, Pedro sees some close to him demonized, he
comes to realize he has traded his core beliefs for disillusionment—and The
White Rose, with Pedro at the helm, secretly slips off on a new mission.
About the Author--
[More information about the
author can be found on his blog at www.islandofthewhiteroseblog.com/ and on his
author website at http://www.islandofthewhiterose.com]
About the Publisher—
Bridge Works is a 21-year-old independent publisher that
has discovered and first published such successful authors as Tom Perrotta
(whose subsequent Election and later Little Children were bestsellers and
were made into hit feature films); Alan Isler (whose The Prince of West End Avenue
won the National Jewish Book Award and was runner-up for the National
Book Critics Circle’s fiction award); Lorna Landvik; and Claire Cook (whose
subsequent Must Love Dogs was made into a feature film).
Bridge Works titles, in addition to the above Alan Isler recognition, have won
Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for best mystery; have been finalists for the
Barnes & Noble annual Discover Great New Writers Award and ForeWord
Magazine’s Book of the Year Award; and have been among The New York Times
Notable Books of the Year.
Bridge Works’ books are distributed nationally by
National Book Network to wholesalers, retail chains, independent booksellers,
and other outlets. Bridge Works’ books, including Island of the White Rose, are published simultaneously as e-books
and are available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other e-book retailers.
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