Lorena Hughes Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Lorena Hughes is a bestselling and award-winning author of historical fiction novels who is best known as the author of “The Sisters of Alameda Street” and “The Spanish Daughter.”

Hughes was born and brought up in Ecuador but as an eighteen-year-old, she moved to the United States. The author published “The Sisters of Alameda Street,” her debut novel in 2017.

Her previous work was the winner of the historical fiction category at the Southwest Writers International Contest in 2011, made the quarter-finals in the Amazon Breakout Novel Award in 2014, and had an honorable mention at a prestigious literary competition in 2012.

Another gong for Lorena Hughes was when HIP LATINA named her on the list of ten Latina authors making a huge impression in the United States.

Unlike many authors, Lorena Hughes believes that authorship was something that was always in her even though she never knew it.

Unlike her fellow girls that played daddy and mommy with their dolls, she had her barbies reenact the tragic telenovelas that she used to watch with her mother during the evenings.

Her favorite pastime then were tales of heartbreak, unrequited love, and betrayal. As such, it was no wonder that she held onto her Barbie dolls well into her early teens.

When she was just eight, she penned her first book when she attended art class. El Pozo Magico was a picture book about a doll that gell into a well and needed to use magic to get out.

Lorena has said that some of her inspiration for her works has come from “Asterix & Obelix,” the comic books series, and “Alice in Wonderland.”

As a sixth grader, she teamed up with her best friend and determined that they would publish a love story in “Vanidaded,” an international magazine of much renown. It was a publication that was then used to publish in the novels of Corin Tellado.

Back then she was thinking that if Corin could do it why not they, even if she did not know how to type and was only twelve. In the long run, she got sidetracked by homework and school, but it triggered a creative spark in her mind that never died.

When Lorena Hughes was older, she began writing novel ideas letters, and journal entries in old notebooks whenever she had any free time. She used to spend hours trying to convert silly anecdotes into interesting adventures.

It was also at this time that she realized she had an artistic streak probably from her mother’s side of the family.

Hughes enrolled with a beloved artist to take painting classes and would soon participate in several collective art exhibitions that she believed she had a future as a visual artist.

When she turned eighteen, she moved to the US intending to attend college. It was in the United States that she went to The University of New Mexico, from where she graduated with a degree in mass communication & journalism and in the fine arts.

Hughes would then work in illustration, graphic design, and advertising before starting a family. In between changing diapers and naps, she began writing her story, which she conceived as a soap opera in the Latin American format.

However, the realities of life and particularly living in an English-speaking nation made her reconsider her work, which she penned as a novel that she published in 2017.

“The Spanish Daughter” by Lorena Hughes is the story of Puri who grew up in Spain and got her passion for chocolate from her father.

However, it was not until he was dead that she discovered that she was the owner of a cocoa estate in a small town nicknamed Paris Chiquito, real name Vinces in Ecuador.

Filled with hope and eagerness to take up her inheritance and start a new life following the end of the First World War, she heads for Ecuador. Alongside her is Cristobal her husband, who could not be more excited to move across the Atlantic.

However, soon after boarding the ship, it is evident that there is someone who is not very happy with Puri taking over the cocoa estate.

When some dangerous killer sent to take her out kills Cristobal by accident, Puri disguises herself, and wearing his clothes takes up his identity.

She hopes that this will make it possible for her to cross the Atlantic safely and take up her inheritance. Once in Ecuador she also hopes to find the truth about the legacy her father had left to her in Ecuador.

While she no longer has to follow the traditional rules expected of women, she has to confront new challenges that include her father’s dark secrets, hidden affairs, and newfound brothers and sisters.

She also has to confront her attraction to a dark enigma while trying to discover the identity of a man threatening her future and even her life.

Lorena Hughes’ novel “The Sisters of Alameda Street” is a compelling novel that follows the life and times of Malena Sevilla. Her carefully planned and tidy world had collapsed after her father inexplicably committed suicide.

Among his things she found a letter that said that her mother was living in the Andes Mountains in a quaint town named San Isidro.

Intending to meet her mother, she arrives on Alameda Street where she meets her four siblings who could not be more different if they tried. The interesting thing is all of them have names starting with an A.

Malena takes on another identity to avoid scandal and then starts to investigate her new family. Could Amanda the woman who opened the first tango nightclub in the small conservative town be her mother?

Then there is the sickly sister that has inexplicably fallen for a forbidden man and Ana who seems like an ideal housewife even though she does not have the ideal past.

Could it be the artistic introvert Alejandra that is seemingly too scarred by the murder of her favorite cousin?

But she may get into more trouble living a lie as her family may reject her if they learn of her deceit or she may fall for the wrong man.

Even worse is the fact that her arrival may expose long-buried truths or secrets that could wreck her life.

Set in Ecuador during the 1960s, it is a sweeping story of how a family is forced to confront its past and a woman’s search for her identity.