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The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba
Extra! Extra! Cleeton brings Cuba’s 1896 struggle for independence from Spain roaring to life in her smashing historical novel inspired by real events. In New York City, journalist Grace Harrington dreams of following in Nellie Bly’s footsteps, but is stuck writing puff pieces for William Randolph Hearst. In Cuba, Marina Perez (member of Cleeton’s fictional Perez family), disowned by her family after marrying her love, carries secret messages for the revolutionary cause in her washing. And historical figure Evangelina Cisneros is “the most beautiful woman in Cuba” (a moniker she hates), wrongly imprisoned for resisting a Spanish official’s advances. Eager to outsell his bitter rival Joseph Pulitzer, Hearst pounces on Evangelina’s story, seeing an opportunity to sway American opinion on the Cuban struggle—and sell a boatload of papers in the process. After he sends Grace to get the scoop, the three women’s stories come crashing together for an exciting conclusion.
About the Book
Named one of 2021’s Most Anticipated Historical Novels and Best Beach Reads by Entertainment Weekly ∙ Oprah Magazine ∙ Travel + Leisure ∙ BuzzFeed ∙ PopSugar ∙ Bustle ∙ SheReads ∙ Brit + Co and more!
“An exciting and inspiring read that shows us how womanhood, courage and revolution are three words that often mean the same thing.”―NPR
At the end of the nineteenth century, three revolutionary women fight for freedom in New York Times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton’s captivating new novel inspired by real-life events and the true story of a legendary Cuban woman—Evangelina Cisneros—who changed the course of history.
A feud rages in Gilded Age New York City between newspaper tycoons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. When Grace Harrington lands a job at Hearst’s newspaper in 1896, she’s caught in a cutthroat world where one scoop can make or break your career, but it’s a story emerging from Cuba that changes her life.
Unjustly imprisoned in a notorious Havana women’s jail, eighteen-year-old Evangelina Cisneros dreams of a Cuba free from Spanish oppression. When Hearst learns of her plight and splashes her image on the front page of his paper, proclaiming her, “The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba,” she becomes a rallying cry for American intervention in the battle for Cuban independence.
With the help of Marina Perez, a courier secretly working for the Cuban revolutionaries in Havana, Grace and Hearst’s staff attempt to free Evangelina. But when Cuban civilians are forced into reconcentration camps and the explosion of the USS Maine propels the United States and Spain toward war, the three women must risk everything in their fight for freedom.
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