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by Marie McNair Alvarez-Calderon (Author)
Summer in February is a memoir of an impossible dream, which eventually comes true. The Prologue, which takes place on the Texas Gulf Coast and in Guadalajara, Mexico, provides a foundation of shattered dreams and danger in a Spanish-speaking country. The body of the book begins fourteen years later, when the author marries a co-worker who is an engineer from an old Lima family. She returns to another potentially dangerous Latin American nation in 1987, a time when that country is besieged by the terrible Sendero Luminoso, Shining Path Maoist terrorists. During the years that follow, everything she knows for sure comes into question. She must adjust to an ever-changing political environment, a stratified culture, different viewpoints on religion, family, career, and diversion, not to mention constant housing and language changes. Together she and her husband survive corporate traumas, a major house fire, and a devastating earthquake. To adjust to all the changes, the author must redefine her very sense of self. There is trauma, pathos, loss, frustration, humor, inspiration, and finally acceptance and joy in life on both sides of the equator. Summer in February has been described by reviewers as a Latin American combination of Under the Tuscan Sun and Out of Africa.
