A Year of Favor

About the Book

Elizabeth Guerrera has been working the South Bronx beat for the New York Herald-Sun for too long when she finally gets her ‘big break.’ As the new correspondent in the civil-war-torn Central America country of Bellavista, Lizzie finally has the chance to file the front-page stories she’s always dreamed of writing.

Once in Libertad, the nation’s capital, Lizzie quickly finds her loyalties divided. she is seduced by General Rivas Valez, the minister of defense for the ruling junta and the USA State Department’s choice to run the country. Rivas Valdez’s searing sexuality is corrupted by his desire to inflict pain on those he touches. As Lizzie uncovers the layers of deceit that veil the Bellavistan landscape, she will discover the extent of his cruelty.

At the same time, Lizzie befriends debutante-turned-midwife Mary Healy, who tries to show Lizzie the true horrors of General Rivas’s regime, civilians killed at point blank range and dumped into unmarked graves; countless others simply ‘disappeared.’ Lizzie’s search for truth takes her into the darkest heart of Bellavista, a lush and dangerous place where power grows from terror and deniability....

About the Author

Publishers Weekly called A Year of Favor, Julia MacDonnell’s first novel, a ‘compelling debut.’ Kirkus Reviews said it was ‘powerful first fiction…a convincing evocation of life in a Central American country—and a compelling portrait of a gutsy, post-feminist heroine.’ MacDonnell’s second novel, Mimi Malloy by Herself, will be published by Picador in April 2014. Her stories have appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, The Larcom Review, Paper Street, Happy, Many Mountains Moving and many other publications. Her story collection, Plight of the Piping Plover, currently under submission, was named a finalist in the 2012 Spokane Prize for Fiction. MacDonnell is the recipient of two fellowships from the N.J. State Council on the Arts, two Geraldine R. Dodge fellowships, a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship, and other prizes for her journalism and fiction. She is the nonfiction editor of Philadelphia Stories, and a tenured professor at Rowan University.