Before the Rain Falls by Camille Di Maio

Kindle Edition, 334 pages

Expected publication: May 16th 2017 by Lake Union Publishing

After serving seventy years in prison for the murder of her sister, Eula, Della Lee has finally returned home to the Texas town of Puerto Pesar. She’s free from confinement—and ready to tell her secrets before it’s too late.

She finds a willing audience in journalist Mick Anders, who is reeling after his suspension from a Boston newspaper and in town, reluctantly, to investigate a mysterious portrait of Eula that reportedly sheds tears. He crosses paths with Dr. Paloma Vega, who’s visiting Puerto Pesar with her own mission: to take care of her ailing grandmother and to rescue her rebellious younger sister before something terrible happens. Paloma and Mick have their reasons to be in the hot, parched border town whose name translates as “Port of Regret.” But they don’t anticipate how their lives will be changed forever.

Moving and engrossing, this dual story alternates between Della’s dark ordeals of the 1940s and Paloma and Mick’s present-day search for answers?about roots, family, love, and what is truly important in life. 

My Thoughts…

  Before the Rain is told in a dual timeline format, Della Lee’s story from 1940’s and the current day in Puerto Pesar.   In the 1940’s Della Lee finds the love of her life in Tomas and she also pleads guilty to murdering her sister and is sent to prison.     In the present day granddaughter has returned to help care for her grandmother after she had a heart attack. 

I was intrigued by both timelines.     The idea of a new bride and loving sister killing her sister and being sent to a women’s prison was fascinating.    The things she had to do just to stay alive along with the interesting people she met while incarcerated had me intrigued.   The other time is Paloma’s story.  I felt for Paloma, coming home to a sister that has grown up and turned into a young women that is so different from who she use to be and a grandmother recovering from a heart attack could not have been easy.    Paloma ran from this place, she needed to get out of Puerto Pesar and do bigger and better things yet it is the place that needs her the most.     Add to her life the journalist Mick Anders, who has his own reasons for running from his home, and her life gets more intriguing.  

Before the Rain is a story of family, heartbreak,  and finding out what is truly important in life.  

Thank you to NetGalley and Ann-Marie Nieves with Get Red PR for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. 

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