The Coffee Diary

A beautifully written epic novel about one woman’s search to recapture a sense of home in a complicated and violent world.

Two years after her father’s brutal murder, Veronica returns to her hometown to decide whether to sell her family’s coffee farm. In her abandoned home she stumbles upon her teen journal, whose entries rekindle memories of crucial events in her life, in particular the arrival of her young illegitimate half-brother, thrust on her father by his grandmother, a poor villager. This trauma changes her, and links her family to Jaime, who later becomes the town’s corrupt mayor.

Jaime, born into the lower class, turns to illegal activities to break the inevitable cycle of poverty. Yearning for respectability, he is determined to have Veronica’s farm by any means necessary. The small town’s perverted judicial system forces ordinary citizens to take the law into their own hands—when thugs follow and threaten Veronica, family and friends in the community rise up to protect her.

During the years Veronica lived away, memories of her country faded: the haunting landscapes, the beauty of the coffee farm, traditions and faith. After her return she discovers, despite corruption, violence, and organized crime, a sense of belonging not experienced elsewhere. The country casts its spell on her and she realizes that Mayor Jaime, whom she took for a villain, is just a man shaped by the unforgiving nature of Guatemalan society.