By Jan Jackson
Ladies Of Managua
By Eleni N. Gage, St. Martin’s Press, New York
First edition May 2015
… Just finished reading Eleni Gage’s novel “The Ladies of Managua.” I loved it. The ladies – Isabella, Isabella’s daughter Ninexin and Ninexin’s daughter Mariana – were women I liked meeting and Eleni spent the time I needed to get to know them.
I spent my career traveling without time to linger in interesting places and learn what life was like from the people who lived there. Chapter by chapter, I got to get to know these complicated women in the places they lived.
Fiercely independent but fiercely loyal, the women are bound together in love. Love for their men (sometimes secret), love for their causes (sometimes secret) and love for each other (sometimes secret). I feel like I’ve been to Nicaragua now and in a way that I wasn’t aware it was happening.
After you’ve met these three Ladies of Managua, you won’t forget them or the secret causes that propelled them. Eleni understood the story was the three women and she artfully positioned Nicaragua as only the setting. I look forward to her next book. I want to see where she is gong to take me next time and who is going to be there.
http://www.amazon.com/Ladies-Managua
