The Captain's Daughters - María Dueñas

The novel The Captain's Daughters, by my beloved Spanish writer María Dueñas, has a very characteristic script. Always placing women as the protagonists of her stories, the writer shows in this publication how immigration to the United States in search of the "American Dream" is a long-standing process and how, in many situations, it is not easy at all. However, the writer clearly seeks to exalt the strength of women who are forced to reinvent themselves when the winds are not favorable.

The most widely read Spanish writer in Brazil has built a captivating and engaging plot in The Captain's Daughters, and followed the same trend she used in The Time Between the Seams, with stories of immigrant women who have to overcome themselves in order to survive, first and foremost.

In this book, a mother - a very traditional Spanish woman - and three daughters - the temperamental Victoria, Mona and Luz Arenas, are forced to leave their homeland (Spain) after the death of the family matriarch and follow the adventures of their father and husband, Emilio Arenas, in the United States, in New York, in 1936.

He had bought a small tavern - El Capitán - with the dream of making it the family's livelihood. However, with his death, mother and daughters find themselves in an extremely difficult situation. They have a tavern to run, but have never been involved in management. Also, the company responsible for the accident that killed the patriarch offers compensation for his death, which consists of a lot of money plus tickets to Spain.

However, a mysterious lawyer appears and gives some advice that could change the course of the Arenas women.

Well, the road will be tortuous, full of challenges, with people who only want to harm them, and others who are on these women's side. But how do they know who is who? It's a lot of tragedy for a family who can't even speak the language of that country in a short space of time. What's more, they need to know how to manage each other's personalities. Explosive, vulnerable, naive, but very resilient, with a great power to overcome.

Along the way, they meet people who are crucial to the characters' outcome.

With a rather slow pace at the start of this plot, the story took a little longer than usual to seduce and captivate me, to the point where I was rooting for the characters. The naivety of the daughters, in some situations, was a little exaggerated, but nothing that got in the way of the story.

It's a very characteristic style of the author, and I really like this type of narrative. Although it's fiction, it's very likely that there were several Arenas families at the time who went to the United States believing in the "American Dream".

A very good book worth reading!

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