Before the Rain Falls

A Novel

By: Camille Di Maio

Narrated by: Dara Rosenberg

Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

After serving seventy years in prison for the murder of her sister, Eula, Della Lee has finally returned home to the Texas town of Puerto Pesar. She's free from confinement - and ready to tell her secrets before it's too late.

She finds a willing audience in journalist Mick Anders, who is reeling after his suspension from a Boston newspaper and in town, reluctantly, to investigate a mysterious portrait of Eula that reportedly sheds tears. He crosses paths with Dr. Paloma Vega, who's visiting Puerto Pesar with her own mission: to take care of her ailing grandmother and to rescue her rebellious younger sister before something terrible happens. Paloma and Mick have their reasons to be in the hot, parched border town whose name translates as "Port of Regret." But they don't anticipate how their lives will be changed forever.

Moving and engrossing, this dual story alternates between Della's dark ordeals of the 1940s and Paloma and Mick's present-day search for answers about roots, family, love, and what is truly important in life.

©2017 Camille Di Maio (P)2017 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Good Story

Well structured, the story switched settings at just the right time. I enjoyed the narration.

Excellent

Loved it! Could not stop listening and was Wowed by the plot twist!! I could read this over and over!!

what a book!!!

What made the experience of listening to Before the Rain Falls the most enjoyable?

when I first started listening i was not that interesting about listening to it. the book for me was a little bit boring at the beginning but after couple hours of listening I wanted to find out more about what really happened to the sister. im so happy I finished the book, it was amazing ,I even cried through the book. it's worth listening, im sure you will love as much I did.

Before the Rain Falls

I found this very well written book to be extremely unbelievable and depressing. I won't recommend it to any of my friends or family. Such a sad book.

Tragic and happy at the same time

This book captured my attention from the very beginning. I didn't want to stop reading it. There were times it was warm and hopeful and full of love. Then there were times where it made me want to cry. This is an excellent read and highly recommended.

A Sister's Love

Camille Di Maio is an author that we will see a lot of in the future. This work of women’s literature shows unusual character depth, insight of a woman’s heart, and what women will do for her family members. There are surprises throughout, but the ending is beyond what I could have guessed.

Readers will go back and forth from the mid-to-late 1940’s to present day Puerto Pesar, and various years between at Goree State, then Mountain View prisons in Texas. Della Lee has been in prison for 70 years for the murder of her sister Eula Lee, the Songbird of Puerto Pesar. She has just been released and goes back to the home she lived in with her family many decades earlier…actually, until her wedding day, when Eula Lee died and Della was arrested.

Mick Anders is a down-and-out journalist whose desire to get the biggest scoops overcame his desire for telling the truth about people and events in a way that the common man can grasp. He went to Puerto Pesar, a far cry from Boston, to do a piece on a painting of Eula Lee hanging at the local parish that appears to be weeping. His intention is to get the story and get out of the hot desert town, until two things occur. He meets Dr. Paloma Vega. He also hears about Della Lee Trujillo’s recent release from seven decades in prison. Perhaps he can get a story on the elderly lady and get back in the good graces of an editor.

Paloma is a recent graduate with a new position awaiting in New York City. She is in town to help her younger sister Mercedes care for Abuela, recovering from a heart attack. She has many memories of Abuela and how she took in two orphaned grandchildren. Paloma sees how frail Abuela is and begins to understand Mercedes’ animosity towards her, how she felt abandoned when Paloma left her to go to college. Yet she has a job to return to, a life in New York. Meeting Mick and accompanying him to meet Miss Lee.

Della, Paloma, and Mick and the primary characters, and I grew fond of each of them throughout the novel. They are very well defined, and while their friendship might be unconventional, it will change each of them. Della and Paloma are my favorites, and in some ways the story ended far too quickly.

This is a fabulous novel that is at times very dark and painful, and at other times showing what has become important in each of the characters’ lives and if those jewels of goals are really worth the cost. The end brought surprises I would never have anticipated, and the end is more than satisfactory. I really enjoyed this novel, and highly recommend it to those who appreciate women’s literature with strong characters, struggles, and ultimately joy.

The narrator is excellent; she enhances the novel through voice inflections, character changes, and a clear voice that rings through both dark memories and sunlit prose.

Good story

Didn't care for the narrator. she ended each sentence as if it were a question

Very Enjoyable

A good story with a twist at the end
I didn't see it coming until the last minute.

Great Story!

Really good book. Good story - not predictable ending except fir this and that here and there - but reslly engaging personalities - believable story - its one of the best I’ve read this year - for not being other-worldy and yet still captivating and engaging.

Before the Rain Falls: A Family Love Novel

Nice variety of characters. Unexpected story line. Ending really surprised me. Loved the details around everything besides the people. A very adequate performance.