Most of us love to travel and may have been fortunate enough to have visited lots of other countries around the world, and have plenty more on our “to visit” lists. There may be even a few that you wouldn’t want to visit. One county that has always seemed intriguing and even mysterious is Cuba, the small island nation within the West Indies. One man’s fascination with Cuba led him to visit the island and led to a tale of escape, love and trouble in the Cuban adventure Caliente.
Caliente is the true story of a middle-aged man (Chris Hilton, the author) who falls in love with the tiny island of Cuba and a woman who lives there, and the lots of trouble caused when he moves there.
Chris Hilton decides to leave England and escape to Cuba. He has fallen in love with the country and a woman 20 years younger than him, Yamilia.
He places an advert in Private Eye magazine looking for discreet legal and financial advice to avoid mishaps where he receives a reply from Paul who is serving two years in prison for fraud.
After several meetings with Paul a plan is hatched for them to open a travel business together, with Chris in Cuba and Paul operating it from England.
Chris sells his house and gets as much money together as he can and heads to Cuba with $100,000 in an attaché case and a similar amount in a Channel Island bank account.
All sounds pretty straight forward and achievable but things soon go wrong and he finds himself getting into lots of trouble, especially when Chris falls in love – with the island and a woman.
Yamilia, the woman he loves, is very hot tempered and everybody, including her friends, thinks she is crazy and tells Chris to stay away from her. Chris is in love with this young woman so ignores then all and this leads to his downfall along with the friends he has made who all use him to line their own pockets.
Overall, when I started reading this book, I didn’t think that I would enjoy it but from the very start I was addicted. It is an autobiographical story and is very well written. It is exciting and compelling, and I just kept reading to see what happened next and at the end left wanting more. This book will appeal to a wide range of readers: people who love good stories, fans of true stories and autobiographies and with the fantastic descriptions of pieces of history and life in Cuba might also appeal to history and travel readers. A fantastic read and very highly recommended. Wonderfully written and thoroughly entertaining.
Caliente is an exciting and compelling read; you almost feel like you are in Havana with Chris.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £7.99 (Paperback)
Available to buy from Amazon here.
