Title: Don Roberto’s Daughter: Natasha
Author: Connor Royce
Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing
Genre: Romance
First Published: November 2018
Language: English
Setting: Texas and Mexico
Protagonist: Natasha
Main Characters: Natasha, Sofia, Don Roberto, Sean, Luis.
Narration: Third person omniscient
Book Summary: Don Roberto’s Daughter: Natasha
After three months in Texas, Natasha begins to question the wisdom of her plans. She left a good job on the border to go to America to learn English, but now she wants nothing more than return home. She has not heard from Luis, the boyfriend she left in Mexico since she arrived. It’s only her pride that refuses to let her give up and accept defeat.
When she meets Sean, she finds a pleasant distraction and another motivation to learn English. Infatuated, she fills her days thinking about her “handsome cowboy”, and months slip by. Before she knows it, she is drawn inexorably into a deeper affection for Sean. He buys her a Bible and opens a world to her that she hadn’t glimpsed since she was a child. Her spirit awakens and it is hungry.
As the time draws nearer when her Visa will expire, Natasha contracts a strange illness. She suffers bouts of fever and agonizing pain. Torn between going home and the love she feels for Sean, Natasha despairs. On the eve of her departure, they make a promise that this separation is not the end of their relationship.
Back in Mexico, surrounded by friends and family, Natasha is happy. She’s home, and yet her heart longs for Sean. They talk on the phone frequently, and she’s sure it will work out, somehow. Then Luis comes back into her life. Luis recalls the days when they were so young and carefree, and he appeals to her ambition and stokes old dreams with the job offer of a lifetime. She must choose between Mexico; the world she knows, stability, and her career, or Texas; the unknown, life in a foreign country where she can’t even speak the language, but where the man she loves is waiting for her.
As she struggles with decisions that will inevitably change her life, her illness persists, increases in severity, and threatens to make any decision moot. She is dying. Where is the loving God that Sean told her about, the God in the Bible? Where is He when she needs Him?
Character List: Don Roberto’s Daughter: Natasha
Natasha: a young professional business woman from Mexico who travels to America to learn English in an effort to enhance her career.
Sean: A truck driver and cowboy who falls in love with Natasha.
Don Roberto: Natasha’s father, a wise and gentle man who wants nothing more from life than to tinker with his projects and be surrounded by his family.
Sofia: Natasha roommate, a young mother who fled El Salvador after witnessing horrific events during the civil war.
A village priest in El Salvador: A paragon of wisdom and patience who helps heal Sofia’s pain during the war.
Maribel: Natasha dearest and oldest friend in Mexico.
Luis: The boyfriend Natasha left in Mexico, whom she has not heard from since arriving in Texas.
Robert: A rancher and Sean’s best friend.
Dr. Alcala: Natasha’s physician who searches desperately for a diagnosis and treatment that is slowly killing his patient.
Lupe, Scarlett, Tey, and Lucio: Some of Natasha’s many siblings.
Book Review: Don Roberto’s Daughter: Natasha
A mesmerizing tale of love as an obsessive disease or an endless journey on a river. A young ambitious Natasha who moved to Texas for her career leaving her family back in Mexico, falls for a Truck driver and a cowboy, Sean. As her Visa is about to expire, Natasha falls ill of strange fever and agonizing pain. While going back to Mexico, Natasha and Sean make promise to keep this relationship and their love alive, no matter what.
As reuniting with family and friends made Natasha happy, her heart still misses Sean. Natasha’s boyfriend, Luis, whom she left here in Mexico, comes back in her life reminding her the old times of their relationship. Natasha has to decide between Mexico and Texas, the world she knows and the unknown world where she can’t speak the language, her career and the man who loves her and waiting for her.
Love. It’s amazing how something so often spoken, so easily expressed, so readily written, is so very misunderstood. What is this four letter word that we worship and live for? Reading Connor Royce’s Don Roberto’s Daughter Natasha made me understand one thing. I should not aim to understand it. For love is immeasurable. It is formed by its giver and is shaped by its object.
Every love is different, as everyone is different. Sean’s love is silent, but as sturdy and intense as his character. Natasha’s volatile and passionate. These character exhibited different depths of feeling. For who knows but the one who feels it? People react to such feelings differently, show affection differently. Our love is shaped by our personalities, some more sensible than others. Its qualities affected by the object, for we personalize it to agree with the whims of our desired. There is no general love, there is yours and there is mine.
On one level this book appears as simple epiphany on the power of love to sustain one through the long travails of life. It felt good reading this book. I adored Author’s lyricism, his fire in every word, his intensity and his serenity.
I finished the book and it felt like the world came to me. It was such a fierce and alive experience that I am absolutely wonder-struck of reading it. A love story different than any other I have ever read. Beautiful, funny, astonishing.
So basically, this is a really well-written and literary novel I recommend to read.
