I picked up The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes by Chanel Cleeton, knowing very little about it, and I came away with a new appreciation for Cuba’s history and a story I genuinely did not want to put down. This historical fiction novel moves across three distinct timelines, weaving together the lives of three very different women. Each one is connected by a single rare book. It is a fascinating premise, and for the most part, Cleeton delivers.

Three Women, Three Timelines, One Book

The story opens in 2024 with Margo, a London-based specialist in locating rare antiques for high-end clients. When a new client sends an intermediary named William Greer to meet her, he chooses the location himself, a private setting with guards present and no other guests. The assignment he brings is unusual. His employer wants Margo to track down a book called A Time For Forgetting by Eva Fuentes, a book of which only one copy was ever published. The client wants it for personal reasons and is willing to pay handsomely. What begins as a professional assignment quickly becomes something far more dangerous.

The second timeline takes us to 1966 Cuba, where we meet Pilar. The Castro regime has imprisoned her husband, Enrique, for activities against the revolution. Pilar works in a library and has quietly taken in books left behind by neighbors who fled the island, as the government forbade refugees from taking possessions with them. When her friend Zenaida leaves Cuba, she entrusts Pilar with a copy of A Time For Forgetting. She asks one favor: find the author, Eva Fuentes, and return the book to her. Eva had given the book to Zenaida’s mother years before.

Finally, we travel all the way back to 1900, where we meet Eva herself. 1,500 Cuban teachers were selected to attend the Cuban Summer School at Harvard University in the United States, and Eva is one of them. It is Eva who wrote A Time For Forgetting, the very book that Margo is searching for and that Pilar is trying to return.

The History That Made This Book Worth Reading

One of the things I enjoyed most about The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes was how much Cuban history I absorbed along the way. Cleeton weaves historical context into all three timelines naturally, without it ever feeling like a history lesson. Through Eva, we learn about the relationship between Cuba and the United States in the early 1900s. Through Pilar, we see the daily reality of living under the Castro government, the fear, the losses, and the quiet acts of courage that people found to survive. I found Pilar’s storyline particularly moving.

Additionally, Eva’s journey to Harvard is one I had never encountered before, and I was surprised to learn it was rooted in real history. Following Eva as she navigates life in Boston and falls in love felt intimate and transportive. She eventually writes about all of it. Her voice was one of the strongest in the book.

A Mystery That Builds Real Tension

The central question driving the plot is simple: what is so significant about this book that someone would pay a fortune to find it, and ultimately commit murder to keep it hidden?

Meanwhile, back in Margo’s timeline, a trusted friend of hers, Mr. Thornton, a bookshop owner who often helps her locate rare volumes, is murdered. His death is connected directly to his search for A Time For Forgetting. From that point on, it becomes clear that multiple parties are hunting for the same book, and that the stakes are far higher than anyone initially understood. Among those also searching for the book is Luke, Margo’s ex-husband. A different client hired him to locate the very same antique book. Rather than working against each other, they decide to team up. This adds an interesting personal dynamic to an already tense investigation.

I spent much of the novel convinced that Eva’s book must contain something politically explosive, a secret the Cuban government would not want made public. That theory kept me turning pages. The suspense Cleeton builds around the book’s contents is genuinely effective.

A Disappointing Reveal

However, I have to be honest: when the truth behind the murder finally came to light, I was disappointed. After all the buildup, the resolution felt disproportionate to the tension that had been created. The payoff did not match the promise.

Similarly, the reason A Time For Forgetting matters so much turns out to be more personal than political. Eva is simply writing about her life in Boston and the love she found there. That is a beautiful story on its own, but given how hard the novel works to make us believe something earth-shattering is hidden inside those pages, the reveal felt anticlimactic.

Still a Story Worth Your Time

Even so, I genuinely enjoyed The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes. The three-timeline structure works well; each section moves at a different pace, but together they create a satisfying sense of momentum. Cleeton clearly has a deep love for Cuban history, and that passion comes through on every page.

What kept me most engaged was following Eva. Watching her navigate a world that was largely not built for her was compelling throughout. I also kept wondering what her story would ultimately mean to the women searching for it sixty and a hundred years later. Furthermore, Pilar’s quiet determination in 1960s Cuba added emotional weight that balanced the more thriller-driven elements of Margo’s modern timeline.

If you enjoy multi-timeline stories that blend history, mystery, and a strong sense of place, this book is a satisfying read. If you also loved Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, another novel that uses dual timelines to build mystery around a long-held secret, The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes offers a similarly layered experience, with the added richness of Cuban history and three perspectives rather than two.

The ending may not deliver everything it promises, but the journey to get there is absolutely worth taking.