El corazón helado

By Almudena Grandes

2007

First Published

4.34

Average Rating

944

Number of Pages

28H49M

Audio Length

In a small town on the outskirts of Madrid, a funeral is taking place. Julio Carrion Gonzalez, a man of tremendous wealth and influence in Madrid, has come home to be buried. But as the family stand by the graveside, his son Alvaro notices the arrival of an attractive stranger—no one appears to know who she is, or why she is there. Alvaro's questions deepen when the family inherits an enormous amount of money, a surprise even to them. In his father's study Alvaro discovers an old folder with letters sent to his father in Russia between 1941 and 1943, faded photos of people he never met, and a locked grey metal box. The woman is Raquel Fernandez Perea, the daughter of Spaniards who fled during the Civil War. From the provincial heartlands of Spain to the battlefields of Russia, this is a mesmerizing journey through a war that tore families apart, pitting fathers against sons, brothers against brothers, and wives against husbands. Against such a past, where do faith and loyalty lie?

Avg Rating

4.34

Number of Ratings

6,149

5 STARS

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4 STARS

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3 STARS

11%

2 STARS

1 STARS

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Author

Almudena Grandes

Author · 20 books

She studied Geography and History at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She was married to the poet Luis García Montero. In 1989 she won the La Sonrisa Vertical prize with her erotic novel Las edades de Lulú, which has been translated into several languages. Bigas Luna made a movie based on this book, as did Gerardo Herrero with Malena es un nombre de tango and Juan Vicente Córdoba with El lenguaje de los balcones in his film Aunque tú no lo sepas. As Emilie L. Bergmann said, her novel Las edades de Lulú (1989) "represented a breakthrough for eroticism in women's writing". Her books speak about the Spanish people in the last quarter of the 20th century and the first years of the 21st century. She shows in them a great realism and an intense psychological introspection.