"Daughters of the New World is a sweeping, emotionally resonant saga that explores love, endurance, and the fraught entanglements of power, race, culture, and family across generations. Set between trade-enamoured Cuba and mercantile Boston, the novel finds its intimate human drama within the brutal machinery of the transatlantic slave economy, illuminating both the moral failures and the rare acts of courage that defined the age.

At its centre stands Maria Luisa, a young woman shaped by abandonment and exploitation. Orphaned and later moved into a brothel, she has learned to regard men as instruments of cruelty, none more so than Rogelio Aran, the brothel's calculating owner. Rogelio is a chillingly rendered antagonist—adept at manipulation, buoyed by wealth, and convinced that people and truth alike can be purchased. When he is outmanoeuvred and loses his claim over Maria Luisa, his wounded pride metastasises into vengeance, setting in motion a chain of events that reverberates far beyond personal grievance.
The narrative gathers force with the arrival of Cuthbert, whose unexpected connection to Maria Luisa begins to close long-broken circles of kinship and betrayal. Through their intertwined fates, the novel deftly examines the corrosive legacy of greed and the redemptive possibility of justice restored.
What distinguishes Daughters of the New World is its confident interweaving of past and present, its unflinching portrayal of racialized violence, and its insistence that love, however improbable, can survive even in the harshest terrain. The result is an epic, fast-paced work that grips from first page to last," The International Review of Books.

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The Morning After in Havana

“Los hombres son diablos—Men are devils.”

Since leaving the orphanage three weeks ago, that was the one thing Maria Luisa had learned beyond a doubt. She sat on a hard chair in the hotel room, wearing only a thin robe. She stared at the young man asleep in the wide bed with carved mahogany posts, wondering what new degradation he would subject her to. Her bottom lip swelled where the captain had hit her. Her eyes were red with purplish circles from not having slept the night. The bottoms of her feet were raw and dirty from walking barefoot on the dark, deserted, cobblestone streets from the captain's ship to the hotel. A freshening breeze coming through the half-shuttered window gave her a small measure of relief. This coolness lasted only a few precious early morning hours in the Caribbean. Maria Luisa had used up her tears; she no longer hoped. She might have prayed, but prayers were futile in hell, and that was where she was.

The young man's eyes flickered open. They were reddened like hers. He groaned. He had had too much to drink. Men were clumsy and dangerous when they drank too much. He raised his head. With his hair sticking out at odd angles, his beak of a nose, and skinny shoulders, he resembled a frightened seagull. Maria Luisa braced herself for the torments this devil, who resembled a frightened seagull, would do. She saw three options: submit, fight back, and make him pay for his cruel pleasure, or jump out the window and put an end to the dilemma.

Even before he regained consciousness, Cuthbert was aware something was wrong. Something inexpressibly terrible had happened the evening before. What was it? The effort to recall was painful, like lifting a bandage from a raw wound. There it was. He saw himself with painful clarity.

This was Cuthbert's first morning in Havanna. He had arrived at noon the day before. The agent, Francisco Miller, met him on the dock. Miller expressed surprise at Cuthbert's appearance, followed by condolences at the news of the death of Cuthbert's father. Miller then examined the manifest and gave the welcome information that he had sold the entirety of the cargo as promised, and the unloading would begin immediately. Within a week, Miller assured him he would have obtained enough bundles and barrels of tobacco and sugar at advantageous prices to fill the hold for a profitable return to Boston. Cuthbert frowned. Unlike his father, he was an abolitionist and wanted to deal with commodities not produced by slave labor, but he would bring up his reservations later. Regretting he had other obligations that evening, Miller checked him into the hotel and told Cuthbert to rest and drink in the pleasures of the wealthiest city in the Americas. They would discuss business tomorrow.

After freshening himself with a shave and a change of clothes, Cuthbert decided to explore Havana. It was late afternoon, and the slant of the sun’s rays gave everything an inner vibrancy. Having lived all his life in the environs of Boston, Cuthbert had never imagined a city like this. Vaguely threatening and vaguely exciting, the streets pulsed with the life of hundreds of individual dramas played out for all to see. The whole human spectrum, every conceivable skin shade, rubbed elbows, hawked their wares, traded gossip, poked their nose into their neighbor’s business, cursed and laughed at each other. Wealthy men in light suits and straw hats, their women flamboyant with boas and ostrich feathers. Beggars exhibiting oozing stumps of arms and legs and shaking their bowls. The poor, shirtless, barefoot, with trousers rolled to their knees, the women wearing what would barely pass for undergarments in Boston. Underneath awnings on tables or planks resting between two sawhorses, the impoverished of Havana displayed whatever could earn them a few centavos. In front of an elegant mansion, a bent-back woman dished out bowls of tripe from a steaming cauldron. Across the street, a knife sharpener with a patch over his eye sat at his wheel, grinding a shaving razor and testing it on the hair of his arms. Bare-chested teamsters rolled casks down a gangplank off a ship. A mulato child sold peanuts, shoveling it from a large canvas sack. A bevy of girls, their white skirts and blouses presenting a stark contrast with their ebony skin, carried large baskets of clothes for laundering. A young man wearing a bored expression rode in a trap with his laughing quadroon mistress. Two monks in straw-colored robes walked stiffly, their severe expressions showing disapproval of the temptations surrounding them. More than one woman—African-Spanish beauties—sent Cuthbert inviting smiles, which he avoided. He congratulated himself on not being taken in by these sirens.

So dazzled by the variety, Cuthbert did not notice the change in the neighborhood. The cobblestones gave way to mud; many facades needed a coat of paint. He had entered El Manglar—a swamp that Havana had swallowed whole. This neighborhood had the highest concentration of brothels and, therefore, sailors. With decolletage that left nothing for the imagination, women at the open doors of these establishments invited the passersby into their murky interiors. Not only did sailors roam the streets looking for cheap sin, but there were also fancy traps and carriages plowing through the mud, pausing to drop off or waiting to collect their wealthy passengers. The sirens of this neighborhood were more aggressive. On seeing Cuthbert, they smelled money, and two had taken to stalking him, making salacious suggestions in Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, and Italian. On account of his sheltered upbringing, Cuthbert couldn't even understand the suggestions when they tried English.

Fortunately, or so Cuthbert thought at the time, a man with a big smile in a weathered face and the air of a gentleman fallen on hard times accosted him. He introduced himself as Captain Borchard. He had encountered sailors from the Winthrop, Cuthbert's boat, who told him the sad news of his father's death. He expressed his condolences for Thurgood, a good friend with whom he had shared many pints and intimate conversations. This seemed odd because, to Cuthbert's knowledge, his father was a closed, taciturn man and never conversed intimately with anyone in Boston.

Captain Borchard steered Cuthbert into a dark, low-ceiling tavern, insisting on buying his friend’s son a drink in memory of his father. Reminiscing that Captain Thurgood preferred brandy to rum, he insisted on treating Cuthbert to another drink because the mind needs lubrication to deal with loss. Cuthbert wondered at this because his father, a prim Yankee to his bones, was very abstemious at home when it came to spirits and claimed to prefer barley water to any other libation. A while later, Captain Borchard helped Cuthbert, who was now a little wobbly, over to a table where three men were playing cards. Wine and rum stains of twenty years had given the table a dark sheen and its dark history. The faces at the table all smiled. They also claimed to have known Captain Thurgood and were devastated by his death. Of course, Cuthbert could join their game. “Nothing like a little speculation to allay the grief,” someone said. Cuthbert remembered the shuffling of cards, the quickness of the hands, and the manly talk of men who had seen the world. These impressive individuals listened to Cuthbert's opinions as if they were worth hearing, which his father had never done.

He never noticed his cup filling, but it was never empty, no matter how much he drank. Cuthbert's experience with alcohol didn't go beyond mulled wine at Christmas parties and a nip of brandy on the coldest winter days, so a heavy fog had descended on his brain. The men at the table had to explain the card game five times before he grasped it. The following morning, all Cuthbert remembered of his companions was that one had a long, gray twirled mustache, one had a short, red mustache and gray beard, and the third could not stop reminiscing about all the whores in different ports he had lain with. And he remembered the losses. For once in his life, Cuthbert possessed money that wasn't an allowance. At first, the losses didn't seem like much. Little pinpricks in his present fortune. What did a few pesos or dollars mean? The executor explained that Cuthbert had plenty. As he numbly watched, however, the pile of money shrank. His tongue had become too thick and heavy to say the words to excuse himself from the game, and no matter how hard he tried to stop the losses, it was as impossible as bailing water in a sinking boat with a sieve.

"We are all men of the world, so your word is enough," the gray mustache replied when Cuthbert said he had no more ready money on him. The whoremonger followed with the question: "Who is your banker? Who is your agent?" The three didn't like the name of Cuthbert's agent and banker because Francisco Miller was notorious for not honoring the word of his clients, even when put on paper. They advised him to get a new agent and banker who respected his clients' wishes. Cuthbert wondered at this.

"All I have in the world is the money from the sale of goods with my agent and my father's boat, the Winthrop, which I guess belongs to me."

The grave faces at the table suddenly beamed. Winthrop would do, of course. The whoremonger claimed to have been a solicitor in Dublin. He had seen the boat—a pretty little brig—and quickly estimated her worth at six thousand dollars. Cuthbert had no idea whether this was a fair valuation, but he supposed the ex-solicitor was honorable. They would convert Cuthbert's ship into shares, which he could use to win back what he had lost. That the former solicitor knew how to draw up such a contract speedily impressed Cuthbert. It was amazing how his ship's spars, deck, cargo hold, and canvas became little pieces of paper, and then, as he helplessly watched, the other players gathered in those bits of paper, meaning he had nothing. A middle-aged woman whose breasts were nearly hanging free from her bodice came up to the table and said, "Leave some meat on the bone for the girls."

No matter how hard he tried, Cuthbert couldn't stop the bloodletting. Every time Cuthbert made noises about leaving the game, he had a winning streak that gave him hope of recovering what he had lost. The winning streak never lasted. He could almost feel his hands trying to grasp the wood, the masts, the sails, rigging, rudder, and bowsprit, bruising his fingers as they slipped through them. Cuthbert couldn’t find a polite way to stand up and declare to these men, "I’ve had enough.” There was never an opening in the conversation. It seemed the height of impoliteness because one of them would already have begun dealing, and Cuthbert’s mother had ensured while she was alive that he learned to be a polite boy. At the night's end, the red mustache and the gray twirled mustache owned nine-tenths of his boat. The whoremonger had lost more, but he didn’t seem to mind and was as jolly as ever. He told Cuthbert money was like a woman you welcomed into your bed and woke in the morning to find gone. Another will soon take her place.

“I’m done,” Cuthbert finally managed to utter in the voice of a drowning man calling, “Help!”

His companions said it was a pity that Cuthbert quit just when his luck was beginning to change—a man needed to ride out his bad luck until it turned.

“I’m done.” It was a simple thought and perhaps the only coherent thought Cuthbert was capable of in the deep fog of his brain.

More papers were drawn up, and witnesses summoned from the other tables. Cuthbert’s companions seemed familiar with the legalities involved in drawing up such documents. Winking at the proprietress, the gray twirled mustache handed Cuthbert four hundred dollars.

“You ended the night with more money than you had at the start,” the gray beard and short red mustache said as Cuthbert signed away the rest of the ship, the shock of the loss almost sobering him.

Captain Borchard slapped Cuthbert on the back, announcing, “Cecilia, this poor boy is in desperate need of feminine comforting.”

Two prostitutes, one coal black, one so pasty white that it seemed doubtful she had ever seen daylight, were circling him like hawks circle prey while Cuthbert was gazing at his four hundred dollars, which meant failure and ruin. A white hand was reaching for the money when another seafaring gentleman, by the look of him, sat down in front of Cuthbert and pushed the hand away.

“Show some pity,” he said to the prostitutes, who snarled and retreated. He was a man in his later years. The storms of his life had played out on the features of his face. He was quite drunk.

“I am Captain Teague if you need a name. For the last hour, I been watching those four sharps hornswoggling you out of a fortune, young man. I might have stopped them, but they were armed, and it would be as perilous as getting between wolves and a fresh carcass.”

“What am I to do? I have no boat.” It was a strain to comprehend he had lost something as large as a boat.

“You still have money, lad?” Teague commented.

“Four hundred dollars.” Cuthbert pointed to the pile on the table.

“I’m surprised they left you with so much. Must be so the whores can take their share. I seen those four take the shoes, shirt, and pantaloons from a man. You are fortunate that your banker is Francisco Miller. He would not have paid the scoundrels even if it meant not giving you the money.”

“But what do I do now?”

“Let’s address your problem of having no boat. I am the owner of the prettiest little schooner you can imagine. Yet, I am in a mind to retire from my five decades at sea. Shuffle the deck, young man. You choose your card and my card, keeping both face down. High card wins.”

“Why should I trust you? I’ve just been cheated, like you said.”

“And deservedly so, lad, for your lack of worldly experience. Double or nothing. You have four hundred dollars. I have a boat. Come on, young man. Don’t you want to win something back and make up the evening losses? What a sharp said about riding out your bad luck was the only true thing they said.”

“And be hornswoggled again?” Cuthbert barely suppressed a nauseous lump coming up his throat.

“I ne’er cheated a soul in my life, although I murdered a cheater in Barbados and hung three mutineers off the coast of Africa. Trust me. Who knows. You may make something of this evening yet.”

Cuthbert felt powerless. Alcohol had robbed him of his will and likely of his ability to stand. “What does it matter?” he slurred. “I might as well complete the job of my ruin.”

“That’s the spirit.” Teague slapped him on the back. “Come on now, shuffle and deal two cards down.”

They played double or nothing three times. Cuthbert didn’t react when he won the first round. That was merely fate playing with him. He had had his hopes crushed seven times during the last four hours. The second round he won made Cuthbert even more certain he was about to lose everything. Fate was toying with him.

Cuthbert almost didn’t hear the words, “Congratulations, young man. You’ve won the prettiest schooner in all of Havana.”

“What’s the name of your boat, and where is she docked?” Cuthbert asked as the captain half carried him out of El Manglar, down the nearly deserted streets, up the backstairs to his hotel room, through the door, and then, with a tiny push, made him collapse on his bed.

“What’s the name of your boat or, I guess, my boat? I didn’t hear it.” Cuthbert felt the room slowly spin.

“Maria Luisa,” the captain said. “I’ll deliver the papers so you can look her over in the morning.”