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 … 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.
more
An engrossing story of family, love, loss and secrets. Beautifully written with characters that are are both complex and likable. It is a unique story line told in dual time periods from the 1940’s where we hear Della Lee’s story of growing up in the small border town of Puerto Pesar, Texas and of her time spent in prison for the murder of her younger sister to present day where we meet a slightly jaded journalist who hopes to get Della’s story plus find out about the painting of her sister that supposedly sheds tears. A page turner with a twist to the ending. Highly recommended.
Another excellent novel that should be on everyone’s list to read.
A compelling, twisty tale you won’t want to put down. Di Maio writes appealing characters in heartfelt scenes that are crisp with tension. Highly recommended.
I loved this book from the very first page…
I did like the characters in the book. When she goes back and forth from the past to the present and the 2 women’s stories, it cuts off just when something is about to happen and definitely keeps you interested. The answer to the big question is left to the very end. It was inspirational, but sad and also a good ending.
I absolutely loved Before The Rain Falls! The characters captured my heart and the story was both brilliantly and beautifully written. My second favorite title of Camille Di Maio’s so far and my second favorite only because The Way of Beauty takes place in New York City. I highly recommend this book!
As Della was released from prison after her life sentence and returning to Puerto Pesar, The Port of Regret, she wondered if she would regret going back since her life had definitely been a regret for more than one reason.
Della had been found guilty of murdering her sister Eula. The trial and the story became well known, and portraits of both Della and her sister became famous. Eula’s portrait, the Santa Bonita, was most talked about and rumored to have actual tears falling from her eyes. Della should have been the one with tears for having to spend her life in prison only four hours after she had married Tomas.
We move to another family in town that also had two sisters and a grandmother that raised them. They were sisters, Paloma and Mercedes, who knew the story of Della and Eula. Paloma went to New York to become a doctor and has returned for a month to take care of her grandmother who had a heart attack. The younger sister, Mercedes, was trouble from the beginning and still was but Paloma was trying to reconnect and help Mercedes.
Another person who knew the story of the murder, Della’s prison term, and the crying portrait was, Mick, a reporter from New York looking for a story to boost his career. When all three of these characters meet, an intriguing story is created that you won’t want to put down.
BEFORE THE RAIN FALLS has a mesmerizing cover and a mesmerizing story line. The characters are very easy to connect with and love. We follow the story and the characters as the author takes us back and forth between what Della’s life was like before and during her prison term, when she returns home, and her interaction with the town and its residents. All characters are connected to Della’s story in one way or another.
BEFORE THE RAIN FALLS had me completely absorbed. Ms. Di Maio has a writing style that just pulls you in, allows you to meet characters you will fall in love with, and meet characters you would want to have in your life.
BEFORE THE RAIN FALLS has love, family, tears, heartbreak, and yearning, but ultimately gives you a warm feeling inside.
BEFORE THE RAIN FALLS has a beautiful cover, a beautiful story line, and beautiful, heartfelt characters.
Do NOT miss reading BEFORE THE RAIN FALLS.
It is a perfect book for women’s fiction fans and makes you feel the need to hug all your women friends and family. 5/5
This book was given to me free of charge and without compensation by NetGalley in return for an honest review.
Before the Rain Falls by Camille di Maio is a poignant, tragic story of family, love, loss, and redemption, with a mystery at the heart of it. It is beautifully written, with a full, well-developed cast strong in character and faith, willing to make incredibly hard choices to protect those they love.
When the story begins Della Lee has just returned home to the Texas town of Puerto Pesar after seventy years in prison for the murder of her sister, Eula. Seventy years. Unbelievable. Longer than most of us who will read this have been alive. She’s lost so much in addition to her freedom. Her youth. Not just her youth, but her middle age and her old age as well. Her husband of four hours, her sister, her daughter, born in prison and then taken from her. She just wants to live out the rest of her life in peace and is finally ready to tell her side of the events that landed her in prison those many years ago.
Dr. Paloma Vega is back in her hometown of Puerto Pesar to take care of her sick grandmother and see if she can set her rebellious younger sister on the right track in the few weeks she plans to be in town. She doesn’t plan to stay. Mick Anders is in Puerto Pesar to investigate a mysterious portrait and redeem himself as a reporter after some very poor choices. He doesn’t plan to stay either. They are unexpectedly thrown together with Della Lee. She tells them, “Things aren’t always as they seem. Don’t assume you know everything you might have read about me is the truth. Only I know the truth. And the only other two who did have long since died.” And she is right. Discoveries are made that will change many lives.
Before the Rain Falls (Puerto Pesar hasn’t had rain in one hundred and eighty-two days) is an engrossing story of family, faith and choices that have far-reaching consequences. The story alternates between the 1940s with Della Lee’s time in prison and present day Puerto Pesar. Author di Maio does an amazing job of weaving threads back and forth in both times and through all the characters’ lives. There is hardship, sacrifice, tragedy – and many twists and turns and surprises.
I have an audiobook of Before the Rain Falls and was consumed with both the past and present and couldn’t stop listening. Narrator Dara Rosenberg is wonderful and makes the story even more heartbreaking if possible. It’s the kind of story that leaves you emotionally exhausted but completely fulfilled. I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it without hesitation.
Oh, this book! The story of Della set in 1943 and today in Puerto Pesar. A story that makes you hurt and yet you keep reading. A story that touches your heart. The before time, before she went to prison. The after, when she returns to Puerto Pesar after 70 years in prison for killing her sister. The prison time, the time that hurts your heart. Her love of Tomas, her soulmate. To tell you more would spoil this beautiful book for you. I can’t tell you how much I love this book and I highly recommend it!
Totally unexpected twists and turns, very entertaining
Original plot and good storytelling that draws you in and keeps you wanting more. The cover and the first line of the description had me right away: “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.” Although it takes the entire book to discover the true story of the tragic event, I wouldn’t want to have missed any part of it. Much of Della Lee’s story focuses on her experience in prison, and the losses, sorrows and sacrifices in her life. You can’t help but feel for this woman who doesn’t seem capable of committing murder. That in itself had me wanting more of the real story. While Della Lee’s tale is unraveling, an alternating storyline involving a struggling journalist and a granddaughter returning home to care for her grandmother and younger sister unfolds. The parallels between the two main female characters are difficult to miss. Eventually the stories seamlessly converge into a perfect ending. I loved the little town of Puerto Pesar. It was a perfect setting for the characters and story. It is not often that I like the alternating story as much as the primary story. In this case, I did like it almost as much; and I simply loved the ending.
Della Lee has never spoken about the night of her sister Eula’s death. Ruled a homicide, Della was convicted of the crime and has spent the last seventy years in prison. Most of the people associated with the tragedy have passed away, including Della’s husband. Released at age ninety, Della has returned to her Texas hometown with few connections to her past.
Mick Anders is a journalist from Boston looking for a fresh story to revive his career. He is in Texas to research the origins of a church painting depicting a “crying girl”. Mick meets Paloma Vega who is back in her hometown to help her grandmother recover from a heart attack. A friendship is formed and Mick learns some details of the painting after meeting her family. Mick is also introduced to Della who agrees to provide background information. Della, Mick and Paloma combine their efforts and slowly unlock buried secrets.
This novel is presented from alternate points of view with details emerging from Della’s life in prison. There is a wonderful blending of each story with smooth transitions moving towards the conclusion. This was an engrossing novel by Camille Di Maio.
Camille Di Maio is an author that we will see a lot of in the future. This work of women’s literature shows unusual character depth, insight of a woman’s heart, and what women will do for her family members. There are surprises throughout, but the ending is beyond what I could have guessed.
Readers will go back and forth from the mid-to-late 1940’s to present day Puerto Pesar, and various years between at Goree State, then Mountain View prisons in Texas. Della Lee has been in prison for 70 years for the murder of her sister Eula Lee, the Songbird of Puerto Pesar. She has just been released and goes back to the home she lived in with her family many decades earlier…actually, until her wedding day, when Eula Lee died and Della was arrested.
Mick Anders is a down-and-out journalist whose desire to get the biggest scoops overcame his desire for telling the truth about people and events in a way that the common man can grasp. He went to Puerto Pesar, a far cry from Boston, to do a piece on a painting of Eula Lee hanging at the local parish that appears to be weeping. His intention is to get the story and get out of the hot desert town, until two things occur. He meets Dr. Paloma Vega. He also hears about Della Lee Trujillo’s recent release from seven decades in prison. Perhaps he can get a story on the elderly lady and get back in the good graces of an editor.
Paloma is a recent graduate with a new position awaiting in New York City. She is in town to help her younger sister Mercedes care for Abuela, recovering from a heart attack. She has many memories of Abuela and how she took in two orphaned grandchildren. Paloma sees how frail Abuela is and begins to understand Mercedes’ animosity towards her, how she felt abandoned when Paloma left her to go to college. Yet she has a job to return to, a life in New York. Meeting Mick and accompanying him to meet Miss Lee.
Della, Paloma, and Mick and the primary characters, and I grew fond of each of them throughout the novel. They are very well defined, and while their friendship might be unconventional, it will change each of them. Della and Paloma are my favorites, and in some ways the story ended far too quickly.
This is a fabulous novel that is at times very dark and painful, and at other times showing what has become important in each of the characters’ lives and if those jewels of goals are really worth the cost. The end brought surprises I would never have anticipated, and the end is more than satisfactory. I really enjoyed this novel, and highly recommend it to those who appreciate women’s literature with strong characters, struggles, and ultimately joy.
The narrator is excellent; she enhances the novel through voice inflections, character changes, and a clear voice that rings through both dark memories and sunlit prose.
Love transcends.
I loved this novel. I could smell, see, taste and hear the sights and sounds. It is heartbreaking and loving and kind that I will share with my friends
This was a terrific book about love and redemption!
Very good story. Was easy to relate to the characters.
Heart wrenching
Exceptional writing
A thriller for sure. Unsure to the end!
I loved this book. It’s a wonderful read.