Published: Dec. 22, 2011
Words: 99655 (approximate)
Language: English

Ebook short description

Catalina Flores de la Peña's tongue got her in more trouble than any other part of her body, even though there were far more likely candidates. But when a storm rolls into her sleepy port town, she finds herself embroiled with a gang of adventurers, mercenaries, and prostitutes on a journey to free South America from the Spanish Empire.

Extended description

Catalina Flores de la Peña's tongue got her in more trouble than any other part of her body, even though there were far more likely candidates.

But when a storm rolls into her sleepy port town, she finds herself embroiled with a gang of adventurers, mercenaries, and prostitutes on a journey to free South America from the Spanish Empire.

A Storm Hits Valparaíso is an epic, historical adventure starring two brothers torn apart by love; a slave running for his life; a disgraced British sailor seeking redemption; and José de San Martín, an Argentine general who deserts the Spanish Army to lead a bloody revolt against his former masters.

Tags

adventure, literary, historical fiction, military, historical, epic, south america, brazil, literary fiction, saga, argentina, peru, latin america, historical adventure, ecuador, chile, south american, literary historical, latin american, epic historical

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Reviews

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Review by: Gregory Lynn on Feb. 06, 2012 : (no rating)
I have a lot of respect for David Gaughran. I read his blog daily and his non fiction work Let’s Get Digital manages to be both inspiring and of practical use so when I saw the chance to get a review copy of his first novel, A Storm Hits Valparaiso I jumped at it, not lease because I saw it as a way of repaying a little bit of what I’ve gotten from David over the past several months.

A Storm Hits Valparaiso is an epic story of love, hate, brotherhood, power, revenge, and the thirst for independence told from the points of view of a variety of people in positions both high and low. For the sake of perspective, Historical Fiction is not a genre I read a lot and I have no particular interest in South America. My home genre is Epic Fantasy though, so I am fully ready to accept a story that spans a continent where what’s at stake is the lives of every single person on the continent.

I wanted to love this book and I ended up just liking it.

Why did I like it?

Well, it has a little bit of everything it claims. There is love, of both the romantic and brotherly varieties. There is the simple struggle for survival of individuals juxtaposed against the larger struggle for the survival of a people with a regional identity. There is the desire of individual slaves to be free smacked right up next to the desire of a nation of people desiring to be free of a colonial power half a world away. In short, it has everything you would want in an epic.

Why then, didn’t I love it?

There are two things I would point to but I think they both stem from one overriding factor. The story is too big for the book. I come from a world of Epic Fantasy where doorstopper novels are, if not quite the norm, well within the normal range. A Storm Hits Valparaiso comes in at a bit less than a hundred thousand words which is fairly normal for a novel. But this isn’t a normal novel. We don’t have a main plot with a few sub plots. Gaughran is trying to tell us a real story from real history and if you haven’t noticed, real life is far more complex than your average novel.

To get into the specifics, I think A Storm Hits Valparaiso has two significant flaws.

One is characterization. It is spotty at best. There are, I think, two characters who are decently written though even there, we should have had more. In other cases, including what should have been one of the more emotional subplots there wasn’t enough characterization to make me actually care about the character. If I don’t care about them I don’t care about what happens to them and they—and the novel—lose all the dramatic tension they should have.

The other problem—and it’s related—is a showing/telling problem. There are a lot of places where Gaughran tells us something instead of showing us something and the story suffers as a result.

For example, there are two brothers, Jorge and Diego who get separated for a long time. When they get back together they find things aren’t quite like they were before and they end up growing apart. Gaughran tells us this and gives us a scene or two to illustrate. It should have been the reverse. Give us nine scenes where we can see that things are different and just a few lines where one of them recognizes the differences.

All in all, if you like historical fiction and/or have a particular affection for South America, I think you’ll really enjoy this story.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: K Gonzalez on Feb. 02, 2012 :
A Storm Hits Valparaiso is an adventure of epic porportions. This historical fiction starts out with a bang...really. The short chapters make reading easy and not lose your place. Each chapter is a vignette masterfully entwined with the realities of South American difficulties, dispair, and human emotions. I was captivated by the ability of Gaughran to wield such graphic depictions of a personal nature and involve his characters in such a spirited fight for their contry, for money, for love, for ambition, for recognition and for some semblance of peace. I had never really thought of the the trials and tribulations other countries had gone through in their past and A Storm Hits Valparaiso has now made me aware of this. A very compelling and moving read for all who enjoy historical fiction...in fact a good read for anyone!
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

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