The Heart Chooses

Esperanza has lost everything she had, and is sent to work to a castle as a maid, on what it seems will be the rest of her life, dull and boring. But her life won't be like that in the end. Love will come up unexpectedly because "the heart chooses for one what seems neither sane nor reasonable".

In this book I wanted to make a little homage to my maternal grandparents.

They were peasants and poor people, and loved each other very much. My grandfather was fifteen years older than her.

He, whose first surname indicated that he came from one of the emigrants who in the Middle Ages went from what is currently Germany to Navarre, was very tall.

And my grandmother, the only one who multiplied the loaves and fishes in the hard Spanish post-war period, was small. A brother of her who went to Argentina became a famous jockey.

This book is set in the eighteenth century and I gathered information about the period, although in relation to the frustrated robbery I have allowed myself a license, since what I tell used to happen in the early twentieth century.

First, the thieves put a hat or cap on the road and money had to be deposited to continue the journey with no problems. If you didn't, a dog would appear barking. More money had to be put in at that time. And if you finally didn't put anything, you got beaten up and had everything taken away from you.

That happened to my grandfather on one occasion when he was carrying all the money from the sale of a calf and, when the dog appeared, he decided to stray from the path and go into the bush. He arrived home late, all scratched and bruised.