I would like to share a new book whose cover captured my attention. The novel is called A Painted Lily by Angela Hoke. I received a PDF copy from Voracious Readers Only in exchange for this romance. Inside this post are my affiliate links if you click on the links and make a purchase I will make a small percentage off the items you purchase.
I wanted to read this new novel for several reasons and the first reason was the cover drew me into the story as it looks like a romance might be brewing. I love all the flowers on the cover and the couple looks like someone I would want to meet. The more I looked at the cover the more I knew it would be a romance which is my preferred reading genre. Angela Hoke is someone I hadn’t heard of before receiving this book and I wanted to check out her writing style.
I charged my laptop and grabbed my favorite beverage and went out to the back porch to read A Painted Lily and before I knew it a hour had passed and I didn’t want to put the book down. I knew I had to finish the story which was intriguing bring me to Cuba and Castro’s regime which I can share with Charlie in our Homeschool Classes.
There is a mention of sex but only kissing is done and a few curse words which shouldn’t turn you off because your going to hear them in real-life no, matter how much you might try to avoid them. The story shares the lives on the couple on the cover and how things that happened earlier in there lives molded them. I can’t wait to read more of her books.
About the book:
Miami playboy Tony Ramirez searches for the secret to his past when he travels to Cuba with his best friend Becca, social worker extraordinaire and a woman with a soft spot for his immigrant history and his damaged heart. But while Tony is surrounded by ghosts of the Cuban revolution, Becca embarks on her own surprising journey. And by the time the answers are in reach, the past catches them in its grip, forever changing their future.
In Award Finalist, A PAINTED LILY, multiple-award winning author of A WHISPER OF SMOKE “has spun a web of family secrets, unrequited love, [and] harsh reality, all gently blended with a touch of romance…. Stunning! Such a pleasure to read.” — Reader’s Favorite
Tony Ramirez is a high-end real estate agent living the fast life in Miami, while his best friend Becca, social worker extraordinaire, does her best to keep him grounded, without revealing why she’s so invested – her secret hopeless love for him. Hopeless because he’s dark and beautiful, and she is… ordinary, but it’s a relationship that has its perks, including a default salsa dancing partner and someone that can reach the top shelves.
From Tony’s standpoint, he’s highly self-involved but not very self-aware, including about best friends that secretly love him, or how his disconnection to his past as a Cuban immigrant whose family fled Cuba in 1961, soon after Castro’s regime took over, are deeply rooted in his inability to be happy. But then a tragedy rocks his family, and he discovers that he and his oldest brother Pedro actually were left behind when his family fled his birth Country, and only came to the U.S. as part of Operation Pedro Pan, a crusade by the Catholic Church to save Cuban children by helping them escape to the United States. And suddenly things make more sense – why he’s never felt good enough, and why he can’t trust anyone but Becca. But it doesn’t answer the biggest question — how could they have left him behind?
As Tony’s search for truth takes them into the past and to beautiful, tortured Cuba, only Becca’s friendship can help him unlock the secrets that will change his world. But while Tony searches his soul, and his past, for answers, Becca’s devotion is pushed to its limits, as she finds herself on her own journey. And in the land of Tony’s birth, a land suspended in time, Becca may find a path to a new future – one that may or may not include Tony.
About the author: Angela Hoke
Angela is the author of upmarket (i.e., book club) women’s/contemporary fiction. Her award-winning novels explore coming of age, generational secrets, and redefining self as well as unrequited love, dysfunctional families, and living with mental illness (among other themes), but always with an empathy that respects the complexity of the human experience and a huge helping of heart. While she spent many years working her way up the corporate ranks in accounting and finance, writing has been her passion ever since she wrote, edited and distributed a neighborhood newspaper at the age of eight (which, incidentally, was a big success until an exposé written based on sketchy facts shut her down for good).
A Whisper of Smoke was her debut novel, and winner of the 2015 National Indie Excellence Book Award for Women’s Fiction, the 2014 GRW Maggie Award for Excellence (women’s fiction with strong romantic elements), the 2014 Heart of Denver Aspen Gold Award (women’s fiction with strong romantic elements) and the 2015 Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal for Women’s Fiction. It was also a finalist in the 2015 International Book Awards for Women’s Fiction.
A Painted Lily was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2017 Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards. Angela’s most recent women’s fiction novel, Missing Pictures (released in 2021), is “a raw, emotional foray into the harrowing and yet hilarious capriciousness of mental illness… a novel that can meet you at your darkest moment and give you the power to decide to save your own life.” She lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her family, a neurotic but sweet Yorkie, and a Black Lab rescue who slobbers and hogs the bed.
For more information about me and my books, check out my website
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
