Description
2023 International Latino Book Award Winner
Finalist for the Texas Institute of Letterss Jesse H Jones Award for Best Fiction
A Long Petal of the Sea meets Cold Mountain in this epic and exquisitely wrought Patricia Engel New York Times bestselling author saga following a Mexican army nurse and an Irish soldier who must fight at first for their survival and then for their love amidst the atrocity of the MexicanAmerican Warfrom the author of The Distance Between Us
A forgotten war An unforgettable romance
The year is 1846 After the controversial annexation of Texas the US Army marches south to provoke war with Mxico over the disputed Ro Grande boundary
Ximena Salom is a gifted Mexican healer who dreams of building a family with the man she loves on the coveted land she calls home But when Texas Rangers storm her ranch and shoot her husband dead her dreams are burned to ashes Vowing to honor her husbands memory and defend her country Ximena uses her healing skills as a nurse on the frontlines of the ravaging war
Meanwhile John Riley an Irish immigrant in the Yankee army desperate to help his family escape the famine devastating his homeland is sickened by the unjust war and the unspeakable atrocities against his countrymen by nativist officers In a bold act of defiance he swims across the Ro Grande and joins the Mexican Armya desertion punishable by execution He forms the St Patricks Battalion a band of Irish soldiers willing to fight to the death for Mxicos freedom
When Ximena and John meet a dangerous attraction blooms between them As the war intensifies so does their passion Swept up by forces with the power to change history they fight not only for the fate of a nation but for their future together
A grand and soulful novel by a storyteller who has hit her full stride Julia Alvarez author of In the Time of the Butterflies A Ballad of Love and Glory effortlessly illuminates a largely forgotten moment in history that impacts the USMxico border to this day
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