In a world saturated with instant gratification and fleeting connections, Chanel Cleeton’s The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes arrives as a profound meditation on the enduring power of words. This multilayered historical fiction weaves together three distinct timelines—1900 Boston, 1966 Havana, and 2024 London—through the thread of a single, mysterious novel that transforms every life it touches. What emerges is not merely a story about books, but an examination of how literature becomes a lifeline when everything else crumbles.
The Architecture of Memory and Survival
Cleeton constructs her narrative with the precision of a master architect, allowing each timeline to breathe independently while maintaining an invisible scaffolding that connects them. At the turn of the twentieth century, Eva Fuentes—a Cuban teacher attending Harvard’s historic Cuban Summer School—encounters both intellectual awakening and devastating heartbreak. Her story unfolds during a transformative moment in Cuban-American relations, when the island nation was navigating its precarious independence from Spain while under American occupation.
Eva’s narrative doesn’t follow the predictable arc of historical romance. Instead, Cleeton subverts expectations by revealing that the love story Eva penned in her novel A Time for Forgetting was, in her own words, “a lie.” This admission—coming late in the book—recontextualizes everything readers have absorbed. Eva writes not to capture truth, but to reshape it, to craft the ending she never received in life. When James, the journalist who seduced and abandoned her while she carried his child, proves unworthy of her devotion, Eva channels her anguish into fiction, creating the hero he never was and the love that never existed. It’s a devastating yet empowering revelation that speaks to writing as an act of reclamation.
The Librarian Who Defied Tyranny
Sixty-six years later, in Castro’s Cuba, librarian Pilar Castillo receives Eva’s novel at her darkest hour. Her husband Enrique has been imprisoned and killed by the regime, leaving Pilar hollowed out by grief. But A Time for Forgetting offers more than escape—it provides recognition. The fictional character Ana’s loss mirrors Pilar’s own so perfectly that she feels genuinely seen for the first time since Enrique’s death.
In The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes, Cleeton’s depiction of 1966 Havana crackles with authenticity and suppressed terror. The revolutionary government’s literacy campaign becomes a tool of propaganda. Books are banned, censored, or weaponized. In this oppressive atmosphere, Pilar engages in quiet rebellion, safeguarding volumes for Cubans fleeing into exile. She becomes a custodian of memories, hiding everything from sentimental family Bibles to rare Hemingway editions that the state would claim.
The tension escalates when Pilar discovers that a government informant has infiltrated her workplace and that the major living next door is hunting for evidence of her subversive activities. The stakes feel genuinely life-threatening, and Cleeton doesn’t soften the brutality of the regime or the constant surveillance that defined this era. Yet even as Pilar faces mortal danger, she prioritizes returning Eva’s novel to its author—a mission that transcends self-preservation and speaks to the sacred trust between readers and writers.
A Contemporary Quest Through Shadows
In 2024 London, American expat Margo Reynolds accepts what seems like a straightforward assignment: locate a rare 1901 novel of which only one copy exists. But when her client’s contact is murdered and Margo herself becomes a target, she’s forced to partner with Luke—her ex-husband and former Interpol investigator—to unravel the deadly conspiracy surrounding A Time for Forgetting.
Cleeton uses the contemporary timeline to explore themes of provenance, exile, and cultural heritage. The question of who rightfully owns artifacts seized during political upheaval resonates with current debates about repatriation and colonial theft. More personally, Margo and Luke’s relationship provides an emotional anchor. Their divorce wasn’t caused by lack of love but by conflicting visions of their futures—a mature, realistic conflict that gives their tentative reconnection genuine weight.
The mystery component propels the narrative forward with genuine urgency. Cleeton skillfully reveals that the book contains a hidden list documenting locations of valuable texts that Pilar safeguarded—information that certain parties will kill to possess. The revelation that one antagonist, Natalia Evans, is seeking vengeance for her father (the military officer Pilar wounded while escaping Cuba) adds historical symmetry to the contemporary thriller elements.
Where the Novel Falters
Despite its considerable strengths, The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes isn’t without shortcomings. The contemporary sections, while propelled by suspense, occasionally feel less textured than the historical narratives. Margo’s character, though competent and likable, doesn’t achieve the psychological complexity of Eva or Pilar. Her relationship with Luke, while touching, follows more predictable beats than the jagged, painful trajectory of Eva’s doomed romance or Pilar’s marriage cut short by state violence.
Additionally, the resolution comes perhaps too neatly. After building considerable tension around the book’s whereabouts and the list it contains, Cleeton reveals that Pilar successfully reunited all the volumes with their exiled owners decades earlier—effectively defusing the contemporary stakes. While thematically satisfying (the books found their way home), it diminishes the urgency that sustained the thriller elements. Some readers may find this anticlimax disappointing, though others will appreciate Cleeton’s choice to prioritize emotional resolution over dramatic pyrotechnics.
The novel’s pacing also fluctuates unevenly. The middle section, particularly once the three storylines are established but before their connections fully emerge, occasionally meanders. Cleeton includes necessary historical context about the Cuban Summer School and revolutionary Cuba, but these expository passages sometimes slow momentum at inopportune moments.
The Craft of Connection
What elevates The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes above its flaws is Cleeton’s evident reverence for books themselves. This is fundamentally a novel about reading—about how stories shape us, save us, and connect us across impossible divides. Pilar’s conviction that everyone can become a reader if they find the right book reflects a beautiful optimism about literature’s democratic power.
Cleeton’s prose achieves quiet elegance without becoming ornate. She writes with particular sensitivity during Eva’s sections, capturing both the awakening of romantic passion and the gutting shame of betrayal. When Eva stands outside the newspaper office, pregnant and abandoned, Cleeton doesn’t need melodrama to convey devastation. The simple image of Eva’s hand drifting to her growing bump communicates volumes about vulnerability, determination, and the impossible choices facing unmarried mothers in 1900.
The author also demonstrates considerable skill in rendering historical settings. Her Boston feels appropriately transitional—caught between Victorian propriety and modern possibility. Her Havana pulses with both vibrancy and dread, where the sounds of executions become background noise that residents train themselves to ignore. These details never feel like research being shown off; they emerge organically from character perspective and emotional truth.
A Meditation on Literary Legacy
At its core, The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes grapples with questions about authorship, authenticity, and what we owe each other across time. Eva writes fiction to process trauma, to create the reality that was denied her. Pilar reads that fiction and finds her grief validated, her isolation eased. Margo searches for the physical artifact but discovers something more valuable: the human stories embedded in every page.
The revelation that Eva gave birth to a daughter who became Bennett’s grandmother adds poignant circularity to the narrative. Eva’s attempt to rewrite her pain into something bearable ultimately creates a legacy she never imagined—not just in words, but in blood and continuation. Her great-grandson receives the book as both family heirloom and historical document, completing a journey that began with rejection and abandonment but ends in recognition and belonging.
Cleeton also interrogates how political violence reverberates through generations. Pilar’s quiet resistance saves more than books; it preserves memory itself against a regime determined to control all narratives. When Evita (Eva’s granddaughter) partners with Pilar to smuggle volumes out of Cuba, they create an underground network that defies tyranny through preservation rather than confrontation. This choice reflects a particularly feminine form of resistance—working within systems while subverting them, using assumed powerlessness as camouflage.
For Readers Who Appreciate
The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes will particularly resonate with readers who loved Kate Morton’s The Clockmaker’s Daughter or Martha Hall Kelly’s Lilac Girls—novels that braid multiple timelines around a central mystery while prioritizing emotional truth over plot mechanics. Fans of Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale will recognize similar themes of women demonstrating extraordinary courage in extraordinary circumstances.
Those who have enjoyed Cleeton’s previous work, particularly Next Year in Havana (selected by Reese’s Book Club) or The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba, will find familiar territory in her exploration of Cuban history and exile. However, this novel feels more introspective than her earlier works, less concerned with sweeping romance and more interested in the quiet heroism of survival.
Readers seeking pure escapist romance may find the book too melancholy. Those expecting a straightforward thriller might wish for more sustained suspense in the contemporary sections. But for readers who view historical fiction as a means of understanding how past and present remain inextricably linked, this novel offers considerable rewards.
Similar Reads Worth Exploring
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab: Another meditation on legacy, memory, and the marks we leave behind
- The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson: Features a protagonist who brings books to isolated communities, emphasizing literature’s power to connect
- The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict: Explores the life of J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian and questions of provenance and cultural preservation
- The Librarian Spy by Madeline Martin: Set during WWII, follows a librarian engaged in resistance work
- The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner: Dual timeline historical fiction with secrets embedded in the past affecting contemporary characters
Final Reflections
The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes isn’t a perfect novel, but it’s an important one. In an age when physical books face new threats from digital dominance and when authoritarian regimes worldwide still fear the printed word, Cleeton’s celebration of literature as resistance feels remarkably timely. The book argues that stories don’t simply entertain or educate—they preserve essential aspects of our humanity that oppressive forces seek to eradicate.
What lingers after the final page isn’t the mystery’s solution or even the romantic reunions, but rather the image of Pilar reading by lamplight in her small Havana apartment, finding solace in Eva’s fictional characters while her own world crumbles. Or Eva, young and betrayed, transforming her anguish into art that would comfort a grieving widow decades later. These moments capture something profound about why we read and write: not to escape reality, but to survive it.
Chanel Cleeton has crafted a love letter to books and those who cherish them—the writers who pour their souls onto pages, the librarians who guard them, the readers who find themselves reflected in strangers’ words. For anyone who has ever been saved by a story, this novel offers both recognition and gratitude.