“The Spanish Daughter” by Lorena Hughes

Title: The Spanish Daughter   
Author: Lorena Hughes   
Publisher:  Kensington Publishing Corp.     
Year: 2022    
Genre(s): historical fiction
Part of a Series: No.

Rating: 

Why I Read It: Once Upon a Book Club pick

Summary: Maria Purificacion de Lafont y Toledo, better known as Puri, travels from Spain to Ecuador upon the death of the father who abandoned her and her mother when she was still a child. On the voyage over, she is attacked and her husband Cristobal is killed. Puri decides to assume his identity to help find who wanted her dead. She meets the other family her father had in Ecuador and has to work through years of family secrets to find the truth to solve her husband’s murder and claim her share of her father’s fortune.

Review: I liked this book and enjoyed it pretty well.

I think my only complaint is that while it was set primarily in 1920 and flashed back to different times in the early 1900s, there really wasn’t much to signify that it was historical fiction. It really was easy to forget that was the case, even without the lack of modern technology. I think a little more research was warranted by Hughes but as I said it was my only complaint.

We again jumped between different characters as narrators in a first person story. I didn’t mind it so much but I do wonder if there wasn’t another way to introduce the information provided so that we learned everything along with Puri, our main character. Because I think that would’ve really played up the mystery and the threat everyone potentially posed to Puri.

(So no, I don’t count it as a complaint).

Puri was a good main character and one you want to root for. She’s determined and brave. Not many people would’ve disguised themselves as their husbands and spent time with people they believed wanted them dead. Puri was also smart and clever, able to puzzle things out, as well as kind and compassionate. She forms connections with everyone easily and does her best to help those in need.

Her half-sisters Angelica and Catalina were also intriguing characters, sympathetic but suspicious in their own ways. Angelica wanted her father’s approval but always felt second-best to the daughter her left behind in Spain (Puri) while Catalina was caught by her overly pious mother and then the town who believed she was a living saint after allegedly seeing Mary. Catalina has her own secrets and may not be as holy as everyone makes her to be.

I felt Hughes’ writing and story shone the most when she was highlighting the relationships between everyone in her story – between Puri and her half-siblings, them and the people in their lives in their small corner of Ecuador, and Puri and Martin, the man who had worked for her father and desired to take control of the plantation.

While there is some romance in the story, I wouldn’t call it a romance. Puri’s desire to find her husband’s killer pushes the story forward but it always feels more out of self-preservation than anything else. After all, the killer was really after her so she knows she’s still in danger. She does pursue a relationship with someone briefly but I’m glad it didn’t work out. I just didn’t feel any real chemistry between the two of them.

And without giving too much away, I think everyone’s endings were good ones.

Bottom line: A good novel with some intriguing twists and turns.

Sex: Some mentions and a brief scene.

Moonlight Musing

Would you put yourself in danger to investigate the death of a loved one?