“The Sugar Island is spare, lyrical, and brilliantly observant.”
Publishers Weekly

“A fine literary voice who proves again, even in these days of 'reality-based' television, that a vivid imagination is much more powerful than any news story in showing us life at the level of the human heart."
The Washington Post

“Cuban American writer Lamazares’ first novel conjures a specific time and place and tells a timeless and universal tale of the struggle for love and autonomy between mothers and daughters. Lamazares’ evocatively understated style gives full reign to the profound irony and sorry inherent in her magnetic characters’ conflicts with each other and with society.”
Booklist