A Painted Lily

From the multiple-award winning author of A WHISPER OF SMOKE, award finalist A PAINTED LILY tells the story of Tony, a Cuban-American man who searches for the secret to his past when he travels to Cuba with his best friend Becca, 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.

"Author Angela Hoke 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.