Why a Booktrail?
1968: A lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Company’s most lucrative banana plantation
Where There Was Fire
What you need to know before your trail
When a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Company’s most lucrative banana plantation burning all evidence of a massive cover-up, the future of Teresa Cepeda Valverde’s family is changed for ever.
Now, twenty-seven years later, Teresa and her daughter Lyra are still picking up the pieces. Lyra wants nothing to do with Teresa, but is desperate to find out what happened to her family that fateful night. Teresa, haunted by a missing husband and the bitter ghost of her mother, is unable to reconcile the past. What unfolds is a story of a mother and daughter trying to forgive what they do not yet understand, and the mystery at the heart of one family’s rupture, steeped in machismo, jealousy and greed.
Locations
Reset- America/USA - VA -Washington DC
- D: Dulles International Airport (IAD)
- E: Kalorama Park
Travel Guide
Costa Rica
Most of the book is set in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica.
It’s a rugged, rainforested Central American country with the Caribbean sea on one side and the Pacific on the other.
The United Fruit Company
The United Fruit Company is now known as Chiquita. This was an American multinational corporation that traded in tropical fruit (primarily bananas) grown on Latin American plantations and sold in the United States and Europe. The company was formed in 1899 and flourished as it came to control vast territories and transportation networks in Central America, the Caribbean coast of Colombia and the West Indies.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: Where There Was Fire
Destination: Costa Rica, San Jose, Washington DC Author/guide: John Manuel Arias Departure Time: 1968
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