What readers think of Next Year in Havana, plus links to write your own review.

I really enjoyed reading this book. The author has a wonderful ability to paint a picture of Havana and Cuba so that you can see the places and settings and believe you are right there. She has also created a poignant, bittersweet atmosphere surrounding the book that beautifully supports the story line of a granddaughter (Marisol) seeking to find the right place to distribute a beloved grandmother's (Elisa) ashes in the land that she deeply loved. In her search Marisol discovers a secret about her grandmother that takes her off point in finding the "right place," but puts her on a journey of discovery about herself and her grandmother that gets her to the "right place."

Set between alternating periods of time - the Cuban Revolution and current times in Cuba - and told by different voices - Elisa and Marisol - the author evokes an enduring tale of loves lost, found and enduring. I especially enjoyed the author's fine, lyrical writing and the passionate and realistic characters she created. One can certainly better understand an ex-pat Cuban's great desire to return to Havana after reading this book. I highly recommend it.

If you like romance, if you like history, this well written book combines both. The story of Cuba can break your heart. But you will not regret reading this book.

A two generation story of Cuban refugees centers on Elisa, 19, when her wealthy family is forced from Castro’s Cuba because of their support of Battista, and Marisol, Elisa’s granddaughter, who travels to Havana when the country reopens to tourists. Marisol carries her grandmother’s ashes with the directive to scatter the ashes in Elisa’s home country.
Secrets abound as the story looks back to Elisa’s activities leading up to the family’s escape and in the present as Marisol befriends a politically active young Cuban. Strong characterizations and a healthy dose of history (not always favorable to America) make this a tale of revolution, passion for freedom, morality, friendship, politics and loyalty.
Complicated love is a strong element that carries the story along for those not so interested in the history neatly interwoven in the tale of family pride and love of country. Book groups will have much to discuss. This would be a good book for teen daughters and their mothers to discuss.

“I am Cuban, and yet, I am not. I don’t know where I fit here, in the land of my grandparents, attempting to recreate a Cuba that no longer exists in reality. Perhaps we’re the dreamers in all of this; the hopeful ones. Dreaming of a Cuba we cannot see with our eyes, that we cannot touch, whose taste lingers on our palates, with the tang of memory.”

“I walk down these streets, and I look out to sea, and I want to feel as though I belong here, but I am a visitor here, a guest in my own country… then you know what it means to be Cuban … we always reach for something beyond our grasp.”

This story revolved around Marisol Ferraro and her grandmother, Elisa Perez. As the book begins, Elisa had just passed and in her will, she requested that Marisol disperse her cremated remains back in her beloved home of Cuba. As a wealthy, influential family that supported Batista, the Perez family chose to flee Cuba as Castro rose to power. Elisa was a privileged young woman with great hopes that they would soon be able to return home. However, she spent the remainder of her life in Miami regaling her children and grandchildren with tales of her love for Cuba. “Next year in Havana” is a toast that the family never stopped saying because the dream of returning never came true. The novel tells the parallel stories of Elisa’s last year in Cuba and Marisol’s visit to Cuba. Both women, decades apart, face complicated love stories with ardent revolutionaries and live in perilous political climates that ultimately force them to face what it means to be Cuban. Can one “be of a place” without being “from the place”?

Cleeton allows Cuba to shine and be a star character in this novel. She captures and shares its beauty, people, history, customs, fortunes, and misfortunes with great care and devotion. She displays a real passion for Cuba and contrasts the dream of “old Cuba” with the reality of current Cuba. During both decades, the characters dream for a better future and hope to stop being guests in their own country. As a reader, I learned quite a bit about the past and present political climates of Cuba. My one complaint about the novel was that at times it felt too much like a political lecture about Cuba. I suspect the author’s intent with this was to show how important political forces were and are to the Cuban people in terms of shaping their lives and country.

Next Year in Havana was an interesting book and definitely worth the read. It was a love story, on multiple levels, combined with a history and politics lesson. It makes the reader both feel and think. Cleeton has another novel about the Perez family coming out in April 2019 titled When We Left Cuba. It follows Elisa’s older sister, Beatriz. I look forward to continuing to read about the family and, of course, Cuba.

The Perez girls were the talk of the town for many reasons.

The day they had to leave Cuba was not pleasant but a necessary event.

We meet the girls when their family was prosperous and in power, and then we move to when the granddaughter of Elisa Perez, Marisol, comes back to Havana as a grown woman and a journalist to find a place to spread her grandmother’s ashes in her beloved Cuba.

What her granddaughter finds is a box that her grandmother had buried and was told to keep for Marisol. What Marisol finds inside the box is upsetting and reveals something no one ever knew or perhaps something Elisa never told anyone.

Marisol is determined to find out more, but is warned about the danger of looking into someone's past.

Ms. Chantell has a mesmerizing effect on you as you read about the adventures and lives of the Perez girls and of living in Cuba then and now.

Her descriptions of the scenery, the kitchens, the food, and simply everything is detailed, beautiful, and exquisite.

Let’s not forget that absolutely gorgeous cover, and remember that no book can be complete without a little bit of love and romance.

The book was a lesson in the history of Cuba and its people. If you have an interest in the history of Cuba, NEXT YEAR IN HAVANA will be a book you won't want to miss.

The secret that Marisol finds out about her grandmother is sweet but heartbreaking.

ENJOY if you read NEXT YEAR IN HAVANA. 4/5


This book was given to me free of charge and without compensation by the publisher and NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this beautifully written book. The author gave such vivid detail I felt I could truly experience the sights and smells of Cuba. Not knowing much about the history of Cuba the history buff in me loved getting an intimate picture of life during the revolution. I highly recommend this book.

Story of Marisol, visiting Cuba to bury her grandmother's ashes. In the midst of this, she learns of her grandmother's relationship with a revolutionary during Castro's takeover. And much more of her family "secrets", and, she falls in love with Luis.
I liked the two stories - Marisol's and her grandmother, Elisa. How different their lives were, but how similiar they become.

How long has it been since you have read a book that conveys both romanticism about people and their country and also the strife involved in a revolutionary world? Chanel Cleeton delivers on both. In her heartbreaking novel about the Perez sugar baron family, they are forced to leave Cuba to settle in Miami after Castro emerges a victor against Battista. However, the novel begins with several generations later, when young Elisa Perez goes to visit the Cuba that her grandmother waxed about poetically. Having been to Cuba, I was impressed how the author was able to convey the mood, architecture and stressors so accurately. In this poignant story, Elisa is trying to find the perfect place to scatter her grandmother's ashes. While there however, she uncovers hidden history that takes her on a dangerous search, but also finds true love . The author skillfully creates a sweeping saga of the entire family unearthing issues of exile, identity, family and sacrifice. The character development was excellent and the breathless wonder of Cuba and its survivors won me over.