PRESS
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"...the reality is that we are all complicated, we are all nuanced. And it may take a little more time to understand that this person can encompass two worlds.”
"The restoration of [Pola’s] Yoruba spirituality and her deepened friendships are both touching and emotionally palpable. This harrowing story is hard to put down."
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"A Woman of Endurance shows us how one woman’s warrior spriit…helps her find her way to love in all its form."
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"Ms. Llanos-Figueroa is such an impressive storyteller. She examines the complexities of mother-daughter-grandmother relationships, accurately capturing the fracturing that can occur when generations clash. Her writing is arresting, her narrative fearless, her characters powerful and flawed."
"In the interest of full disclosure, I know the author. She took a seminar from me in April in Tuscany... The book combines magical realism with historical fiction. It has at least a dozen excellent female characters: strong, decisive, determined to survive. The sense of place is extraordinarily well rendered. The writing is deceptively simple... I enjoyed it greatly."
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"The best fiction allows the reader to believe that the stories—critical dispatches not so far removed from reality—could be true. Llanos-Figueroa's deeply personal work is a landmark example of a people's history that, while fictionalized, is nevertheless wholly true to life."
~ ColorLines stories
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"In her first novel, Llanos-Figueroa chronicles the experiences of a seldom-discussed group, the descendants of African slaves in Puerto Rico. In a straightforward narrative style, sprinkled with magic realism, the book relates the stories passed from mother to daughter through five generations of powerful women....This commanding exploration of women's history will resonate with readers of strong African American feminist narratives like those of Toni Morrison and Ntozake Shange. With its unflinching description of slavery, it should also appeal to readers of slave narratives like Charles Johnson's Middle Passage and Manu Herbstein's Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade."
~ Andrea Kempf
Johnson County Community College
"[Daughters of the Stone is a] compelling debut...
beautifully told by Llanos-Figueroa, this is an unforgettable saga of the magical beliefs binding one family for generations."
~ Booklist