SAGA OF THE GAMONALS

Volume I

Trying to explain in a novel part of the events that marked the history of both peninsular Spain and the Cuban city of Santiago in the last half of the 19th century is an arduous task—so much happened in that period—but the author accomplishes this with great mastery. Important events are elucidated parallel to and intimately involving the life of the leading family; she skillfully manages to bring us closer to many of those events intermingled with the day-to-day life of a military barracks, a Madrid-style humble multi family dwelling, a luxury flat in Puerta del Sol and a little blue house with white shutters near the sea in the Caribbean city. We attend the festivities of the time, the awakening of love and knowledge, weddings, baptisms and deaths, uprisings and deceits, while Spain's Constitutions were changed, three monarchs reigned and the First Republic was established.