One Brilliant Flame: A Novel

Written by Joy Castro

Narrated by Krysta Gonzales, Tania Possick, Frankie Corzo and 3 more

A nineteenth-century utopia becomes a powder keg of political intrigue and betrayal in an enthralling historical novel—inspired by actual events—by the author of Flight Risk.

Key West, 1886. The booming cigar industry makes it the most prosperous city in Florida. As a rebel base for the anticolonial insurgency in Cuba, it’s also a tinderbox for six young friends with ambitious dreams.

They all brim with secrets: Zenaida, the daughter of an assassinated Havana journalist; power-hungry Sofia, who plots a fast track to success; Chaveta, Zenaida’s loyal comrade in arms who fearlessly flouts tradition; Feliciano, a charismatic Spanish anarchist; Líbano, the cafetero, silent and watchful; and Maceo, a daring guerrilla soldier who fights a brutal undertow. As lives intertwine, revolution smolders, and passions ignite, the bustling coral island is set to explode.

Against the backdrop of the Great Fire of Key West, One Brilliant Flame explores the luminous fates of consuming passion and encroaching peril in the face of insurrection, sacrifice, and inextinguishable hope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Jan 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781799790754

Joy Castro

Joy Castro is the award-winning author of the post-Katrina New Orleans literary thrillers Hell or High Water, which received the Nebraska Book Award, and Nearer Home; the story collection How Winter Began; the memoir The Truth Book; and the essay collection Island of Bones, which received the International Latino Book Award. She is also the editor of the anthology Family Trouble and served as the guest judge of CRAFT’s first Creative Nonfiction Award. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Senses of Cinema, Salon, Ploughshares, Gulf Coast, Brevity, Afro-Hispanic Review, and elsewhere. A former writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University, she is currently the Willa Cather Professor of English and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.