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    The Heart Has Its Reasons: A Novel
    The Heart Has Its Reasons: A Novel
    The Heart Has Its Reasons: A Novel
    Audiobook14 hours

    The Heart Has Its Reasons: A Novel

    Written by Maria Duenas

    Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Declared “a writer to watch” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), New York Times bestselling author María Dueñas pours heart and soul into this story of a woman who discovers the power of second chances.

    A talented college professor in Madrid, Blanca Perea seems to have it all. But her world is suddenly shattered when her husband of twenty years leaves her for another woman. Questioning the life she once had and whether she truly knows herself, Blanca resolves to change her surroundings. She accepts what looks like a boring research grant in California involving an exiled Spanish writer who died decades ago. Anxious to leave her own troubled life behind, she is gradually drawn into his haunted world, with its poignant loves and unfulfilled ambitions.

    But in delving into the past, Blanca finds herself simultaneously awakened to the present by Daniel Carter, a charismatic professor with crucial knowledge about the dead writer that he has never before revealed. Amid this web of passion, conflict, and hidden feelings, including her own, Blanca advances like an avid detective, refusing to quit, and ultimately discovers startling answers that resonate deeply in her own life.

    Evocative, lyrical, and humorous, The Heart Has Its Reasons is a journey of the soul from the pangs of the past to the vibrant present. It is a story about the thrill of creating one’s life anew.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateNov 11, 2014
    ISBN9781442381711
    Author

    Maria Duenas

    María Dueñas (Puertollano, Ciudad Real, 1964) es doctora en Filología Inglesa. Tras dos décadas dedicada a la vida académica, irrumpe en el mundo de la literatura en 2009 con El tiempo entre costuras, la novela que se convirtió en un fenómeno editorial y cuya adaptación televisiva de la mano de Antena 3 logró numerosos galardones y un espectacular éxito de audiencia. Sus obras posteriores, Misión Olvido (2012), La Templanza (2015), y Las hijas del Capitan (2018) continuaron cautivando por igual a lectores y crítica. Traducida a más de treinta y cinco lenguas y con millones de ejemplares vendidos en todo el mundo, María Dueñas se ha convertido en una de las autoras más estimadas tanto en nuestro país como en América Latina. Sira es su quinta novela.

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    Reviews for The Heart Has Its Reasons

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    • 4/5
      "The Heart Has Its Reasons" is a pleasant read with an international story line. Blanca is a linguistics professor in her native Spain. Her husband recently left her, and her boys are now young adults with lives of their own. In response to the fear and fury that she feels, she chooses to take a position as far from home as possible, and winds up in a smaller southern California town near San Francisco. Professor Andres Fontana's work had been collecting dust for 30 years, but suddenly someone is interested in what he was working on prior to his death. Blanca has been hired to sort through and organize the work of this fellow Spaniard.The plot lead me to expect a mystery of sorts, but this book doesn't really fit in that category. The past unfolds somewhat slowly in the progression of the story without revealing any extremely shocking revelations. That said, it did hold my interest thanks to the author's style and skill at developing characters. Blanca's character doesn't begin very impressively. She is devastated by her approaching divorce and doesn't seem to be handling things well by running away. As the story progresses, her heart begins to heal, and she becomes quite interested in her exploration of the past through the eyes of Professor Fontana's work. She also experiences the increased attention of several men at the university. One is the head of the Modern Languages Department and the other is a visiting academic who had been a student of Fontana. Ms. Duenas is slow in unfolding her story, but I felt that the quality of the her writing was what made this a good read. If you, like me, enjoyed her first novel, "The Time In Between", you will probably want to try this title as well. She weaves a story that satisfies without feeling unbelievable or trite. I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.
    • 4/5
      3.5 When Blanche's husband of twenty dive years leaves her for another woman, she is blindsided. A linguistic professor in Spain with two grown sons she applies for and gets a fellowship in California sorting the papers of an obscure professor from Spain, who never returned to, his native country. There she meets Daniel, another professor who has secrets and emotional pain of his own.I really enjoyed Daniel's story and loved reading about his time in Spain, the food and the culture. The papers that Blanche is sorting lead her to the professors love and investigation of California's twenty one missions. Trying to find information about a possible further mission not commonly known, Blanche and Daniel connect. This mission may have an important impact on a current issue. I loved the descriptions of the mission they visit, "But the aesthetics were there, the soul and structure, with its humble wooden cross, rough on the top part. A metal plaque summarized its history, intimate and poignant in its sobriety."A woman finding her way forward by looking backward into the life of another from the past. She comes to understand that not everything is rational and sometimes "The heart has its reasons."Arc from Netgalley.
    • 2/5
      When her husband of twenty years abandons her for a woman only a few years older than their son, Spanish linguistics professor, Blanca Perera is desperate to get away and accepts a temporary fellowship position at a Californian university. Blanca’s task is to sort through the private and professional papers of the late Andrea Fontana, a fellow Spaniard, tragically killed in a car accident decades years previously. While Blanca initially cares little for the work, she finds herself increasingly fascinated by the life of the enigmatic professor, and his living protege, Daniel Carter.The Heart Has its Reasons is a character driven novel exploring the themes of grief, loss, recovery and starting anew. Unfortunately I thought Blanca was a fairly bland character, passive and introverted, which is uncomfortable when the story is told largely from a first person narrative. Daniel Carter was perhaps the more interesting character, and I did enjoy reading about his time in mid century Spain.The story does contain a hint of intrigue involving Daniel Carter’s motives, academic rivalry and a ‘missing’ Mission, and Blanca’s task plays into these threads.As I know little about Spain, or its political or social history, I did find some of the information interesting, particularly regarding the Spanish Revolution and the influence of Spanish culture in America.Despite some lovely writing I really struggled with The Heart Has it’s Reasons. The tone was overly formal at times, possibly a fault of the translation. I also found the pace to be quite slow and was tempted to skim more than once.Just barely an okay read for me.
    • 3/5
      I won this book free through goodreads and this is my honest opinion. I personally did not enjoy this book like i thought i would. Parts of it read off weird, and I believe it is translated. It is also seemed kinda slow paced and the plot had parts where it felt like it was on a completely different path then the rest of the book. It has a small usage of words and phrases and overall didn't have a lot of in depth interest. The characters were alright, but not very well described.
    • 4/5
      Blanca Perea's husband of over 20 years has left her for a younger woman. Feeling unable to process the hurt and pain and choosing to put distance between herself and her "X", Blanca leaves Madrid for California and a temporary assignment. As she works on this research assignment she becomes engrossed with the subject and the people around her. Its a fascinating look at a middle aged woman as she redefines her life and future. The book is well written with fascinating characters. **Good Reads win