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A talented college professor in Madrid, Blanca Perea seems to have it all. But her world is suddenly shattered when her husband of twenty years leaves her for another woman. Questioning the life she once had and whether she truly knows herself, Blanca resolves to change her surroundings. She accepts what looks like a boring research grant in California involving an exiled Spanish writer who died decades ago. Anxious to leave her own troubled life behind, she is gradually drawn into his haunted world, with its poignant loves and unfulfilled ambitions.
But in delving into the past, Blanca finds herself simultaneously awakened to the present by Daniel Carter, a charismatic professor with crucial knowledge about the dead writer that he has never before revealed. Amid this web of passion, conflict, and hidden feelings, including her own, Blanca advances like an avid detective, refusing to quit, and ultimately discovers startling answers that resonate deeply in her own life.
Evocative, lyrical, and humorous, The Heart Has Its Reasons is a journey of the soul from the pangs of the past to the vibrant present. It is a story about the thrill of creating one's life anew.
"Dueñas's novel is brilliantly executed, and it moves expertly between decades as it reveals truths of history and of humanity." - Publishers Weekly
"Fans of Rachel Joyce and the film Mona Lisa Smile will adore this glimpse inside the ivory tower and one woman's attempt to rebuild her own life through the discovery of another's." - Booklist
"A slow-paced but ultimately satisfying story of a woman who comes to terms with her past by investigating someone else's." - Kirkus
"Dueñas more than lives up to her title as one of the best contemporary authors today." - El Mundo (Spain)
"In vivid moving prose, María Dueñas tells a story that is highly entertaining." - La Vanguardia (Spain)
"A story you will not want to put down." - Donna Moderna (Italy)
"Dueñas's second novel is able maintain the same pitch of urgency as The Time in Between." - La Repubblica (Italy)
"An ingeniously architectural work structured around fascinating lives." - Baarnsche Courant (Holland)
This information about The Heart Has Its Reasons was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
María Dueñas is the author of the New York Times and internationally bestselling novel The Time In Between, which was translated into twenty-five languages and inspired a successful television series under the same title, as well as the highly acclaimed The Heart Has Its Reasons. She holds a PhD in English philology and is currently a professor at the University of Murcia. Dueñas has also taught at American universities, authored several academic articles, and has participated in various educational, cultural, and editorial projects. She lives in Murcia, Spain.
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