It is 1955, and two cousins, Nora and Alicia, are growing up in Cuba, where the sun shines, the sea is a beguiling turquoise, and at night the lights glitter like stars along Havana's shoreline. But revolutionary storm clouds are gathering, and as Castro comes to power, banks are closed, religion outlawed, and food shortages begin.
Nora and her family emigrate to California; Alicia stays behind. But Nora has left her heart in Cuba. As the years pass Alicia writes of her marriage to Tony, the birth of her daughter, and the terrible privations ordinary Cubans are suffering, while Castro and his henchmen dine off French porcelain in their gated mansions.
When Tony is arrested for anti-revolutionary behaviour, and Alicia and her daughter's survival becomes increasingly hard to mouth, Nora knows she must leave her privileged life in America and return to help them. But Cuba, and Alicia's life as a single parent, is like nothing she has ever imagined . . .
Set in Cuba during and after the Castro revolution, 'Ghost Heart' is an extraordinarily powerful, atmospheric novel about passion, love, and the heart's yearning for home.
