Sweet Mary: A Novel

(Paperback)

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Description

Dulce Maria Mary Guevara is a woman with nothing left to lose. Wrongly accused of being a cocaine queen, she has lost her job, her reputation, andworst of allcustody of her son. Even after the charges are dropped, suspicion lingers. Desperate to get it all back, she takes what she considers the only path open to her: she goes on the hunt for the real drug queen. Unfortunately, the one person she is sure will be able to help her is the one person she wants least to see again: Joe Pratts, her ex-fianc, a man whose connections to the drug world once ended their relationship.

Trying not to fall again for Joe is just the beginning of Marys challenges. The drug queen she is targeting is safely ensconced in the suburbs, hiding behind the faade of domestic tranquility. And taking her down means doing something that strikes Mary a little too close to home: she would have to leave the drug queens young daughter without a mother.

Sweet Mary is a gripping, heart-rending story with a noir soul and plenty of surprising twistsan assured debut from a writer with tremendous experience and talent.

Reviews

"Liz Balmaseda is a gifted writer and a keen-eyed journalist, and Sweet Mary shimmers with authentic Florida heat. It's not often you find a thriller so richly textured, and so true to the culture and soul of its setting." -- Carl Hiaasen, New York Times bestselling author of Skinny Dip and Nature Girl
"Sweet Mary, Liz Balmaseda's emotional, inventive and provocative writing, engrosses you in the most satisfying of ways." -- Andy Garcia, Academy Award-nominated actor
"This book is teeming with sexy South Florida characters, but the biggest turn-on in Sweet Mary is Mary herself, a soulful, ass-kicking single mom who goes all out for the only real man in her life -- her son." -- Carlos Coto, co-executive producer of 24
"Pulitzer Prize-winning Florida journalist Balmaseda makes her fiction debut with a fast-paced tale of mistaken identity and gutsy vigilante justice...Slick, efficient and spare, this story smokes like a well-rolled cigar. " -- Kirkus Reviews
"A drug bust, law enforcement run amok, vigilante justice -- Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Liz Balmaseda transforms today's headlines into Sweet Mary, an exhilarating fictional debut....[Sweet Mary] will resonate with readers long after today's six o'clock news has been forgotten." -- Carlos J. Queirs, AARP SegundaJuventud
"Former Miami Herald reporter and two-time Pulitzer winner Liz Balmaseda goes from star journalist to debut novelist with her sleek ripped-from-the-headlines Sweet Mary....Sweet Mary is a wild ride, not just for Maria but for the reader." -- The Miami Herald
"[Liz Balmaseda] knocks readers in the gut with her fast-paced fictional debut." -- Associated Press

Author Bio

Liz Balmaseda, born in Cuba in 1959, was awarded her first Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for her writings on the plight of Haitian refugees and the Cuban- American population. Her second Pulitzer Prize was awarded in 2001 for her role in covering the federal seizing of refugee Elian Gonzalez. She lives in Miami, Florida. This is her first novel.