American Dreamer

By: Adriana Herrera

Narrated by: Sean Crisden

“A fresh and vital new voice in romance.” (Entertainment Weekly)

From award-winning author Adriana Herrera comes a novel hailed as one of Entertainment Weekly’s 10 Best Romance Novels of 2019 and a Today Show Hot Summer Read.

No one ever said big dreams come easy.

For Nesto Vasquez, moving his Afro-Caribbean food truck from New York City to the wilds of Upstate New York is a huge gamble. If it works? He’ll be a big fish in a little pond. If it doesn’t? He’ll have to give up the hustle and return to the day job he hates. He’s got six months to make it happen - the last thing he needs is a distraction.

Jude Fuller is proud of the life he’s built on the banks of Cayuga Lake. He has a job he loves and good friends. It’s safe. It’s quiet. And it’s damn lonely. Until he tries Ithaca’s most-talked-about new lunch spot and works up the courage to flirt with the handsome owner. Soon he can’t get enough - of Nesto’s food or of Nesto. For the first time in his life, Jude can finally taste the kind of happiness that’s always been just out of reach.

An opportunity too good to pass up could mean a way to stay together and an incredible future for them both...if Nesto can remember happiness isn’t always measured by business success. And if Jude can overcome his past and trust his man will never let him down.

Dreamers:

1. American Dreamer
2. American Fairytale
3. American Love Story
4. American Sweethearts
5. American Christmas

©2019 Adriana Herrera (P)2019 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited.

Wonderful Story

Wonderful multicultural story. I am so thankful to Ms. Herrera. These are the stories reflected in my life, family and friends.

Yowza!

I can't tell you how much I loved this story. Okay, maybe I'll try to use my words...

I lived in the Dominican Republic when I was a kid and the idea of a young Dominican man trying to make his dream come true by owning his own food truck - spoke to me. Plus the love story is both sweet and hot.

I want to add that Sean Crisden does an amazing job as a narrator. I noticed in some other reviews for other books that people didn't like his narration, but I think he is terrific and highly recommend his work as a narrator and of course, highly recommend the very awesome Adriana Herrera's stories

loved it 🥰 Love the narrator.

this is an excellent introduction to the series, I love the way this author captured essence of her character and emotions. highly recommended.

Very Nice Guy Gets His HEA

This story has lovely characters and I was happy to see Nesto and Jude interacting with their friends, family, and the community and to see them get their HEA. Good narration, too. Also, it made me hungry for foods I have no idea where to get where I live.

Brings the food and books and love

Charming tale of family and community helping (and in some cases hindering) Ernesto and Jude to spread Caribbean food and books in upstate NY. Sadly, the “I’d like to speak to your manager” nemesis and “I’ll pray for your soul” frenemies are all too realistic. (May we rout out all such bad behavior in real life even if if leaves future authors scrambling for villains.) Two guys are trying to balance work and love for each other and all their cultural histories. They get it right then goof up and try again and it is mostly* sweet.

(*see nemesis, grr.)

American Dreamer, aptly titled, was recommended to me by an internet stranger who clearly has good taste in books. I enjoyed Crisden’s narration. The spanish flowed easily with translations worked into later text for monolingual listeners. Recommend both book and audiobook.
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Spoilers
Spoilers in this paragraph:
Ernesto means well but falls back on his long established hustle when stressed. When Jude kicks him to the curb, he is right to do so. Then There is a dilemma. No means no. How do you honor someone’s “go away” without trampling their consent? I think the author handled it well by establishing that the guys still cared for each other enough to give up something for the other with no promise of reconciliation. Partly this worked because it fit the characters. Jude needed someone to volunteer to be on his side and stick with him. His no was a preemptive strike. It also worked because people the guys cared about and who cared about them put effort into the reunion, and we know from how each acted with good faith earlier in the story that they would not knowingly push their friends into a bad situation. I felt that Jude could have held firm to his no if he really wanted to. I felt that Ernesto truly needed to practice giving up on income on purpose to start to change his behavior pattern to include people rather than exclude them when stressed. (This ending would have been very wrong if Jude’s past included stalking instead of abandonment.) While I’m in the spoiler paragraph I’m going to say that of course the flat tire rescue would come round right.
/end spoilers

Overall Okay

The story is fine, but the fact that the main characters made no attempt to stop the bigot after her first bout of shittiness through the multiple means of recourse they had is frustratingly stupid.

Nesto was amazing; Jude was just aight

I've been waiting for this book for a while. As a Black Cuban, there are only small handfuls of published stories that I know about(maybe plenty that I don't) where the synopsis describes the main character as Afro-Latinx. Some of the books I've read have been a hit or miss, but I'm pleased to say Nesto was a win for me.

I didn't love everything in the book. Jude, his love interest didn't excite me. It felt like he expected comfort for his privilege and ability to be in spaces no one gave him permission to be in, and I just didn't connect to him based on that in our 2019 climate. Without putting so much emphasis on it, it felt like a lot of the brown characters went out their way to comfort and help white characters, and that was a real drag and I felt this author was capable of more than what we're used to in romance already.

But now that I got what I didn't disconnected to most out the way, I liked that Nesto and all his friends reminded me of people from Nueva York, especially hood kats. They were all queer and Latinx, but even though afro-caribbean was thrown around a lot, I didn't get the sense they were Black passing, as they were never described as such, as we all know having a Black grandmother is enough to use the term Afro-Latinx in this atmosphere of drowning out the voices for many of us who've always had to embrace being Black.

I know Dominican culture is very Black, and not in an American way, so I just want to be clear that I don't read all Black narratives the same, and don't expect one story to tell the right one. But I don't recall any of them ever using the term Black to describe themselves, and that hurt a little bit, but I still thought the DR representation, especially the family narrative was on point.

It's super hard to find DR rep with food and language(both code switching and DR Spanish) done right. Even though I have a handful of reservations, even great books have things a reader won't connect to, and I shouldn't fault every detail I didn't enjoy when I enjoy nearly everything else.

I'll say this with conviction, as I always do with a book featuring an Afro-Latinx main character; this wasn't my Afro-Latinx story. But it was someone else's and I'm glad I got to read it. I look forward to future stories from this author.

A Romance-lover’s dream

I love seeing us Latinx in romance! We deserve our HEAs too and when it’s written authentically, it’s even better!

So Very Entertaining

I loved this audible! The narrator was deliciously perfect. I think that M/M romances are truly the best of all romances. This audible was not only romantic but also sexy and erotic. The storyline was Good. This audible was sincerely so very entertaining. Thank You Adriana Herrera for sharing your story and a standing ovation to Sean Crisden for the narration. Together you two absolutely created art.

Beautiful Latino Love Story!

I loved the book from the very start and could not put it down until it was over! It was quite suspenseful. It was so wonderful to experience a passionate and proud Afro-Latino love story. The support the lovers received from family and friends was heart-warming. Just a GREAT book!