Listen free for 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
The Price of Paradise cover art

The Price of Paradise

Written by: Susana López Rubio, Achy Obejas - translator
Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell, Thom Rivera
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $37.71

Buy Now for $37.71

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

In a city as corrupt as it was luxurious, those who dared to dream were bound to pay the price.

Havana, Cuba, 1947. Young Patricio flees impoverished Spain and steps into the sultry island paradise of Havana with only the clothes on his back and half-baked dreams of a better life. Blessed with good looks and natural charm, he lands a job as a runner at El Encanto - one of the most luxurious department stores in the world. 

Famous for its exquisite offerings from French haute couture to Arabian silks, El Encanto indulges the senses in opulent extravagance. It caters to visiting Hollywood stars, rising politicos, and prerevolutionary Cuba’s wealthiest power players, including the notorious mobster César Valdés. 

Falling in love with the mobster’s young wife, Gloria, is suicide. But Patricio is irresistibly drawn to the beautiful girl with sad eyes, a razor-sharp intellect, and a penchant for both Christian Dior’s clothes and Einstein’s theories. Within the walls of El Encanto, anything seems possible, even a love that promises to heal them and a desire that thrums with the mambo beat of the city itself. 

In a reckless love affair that spans half a century, Patricio’s and Gloria’s lives entwine time and again, challenged by every twist of fate - for in a world of murder, betrayal, and revolution, those who dare to reach for paradise seldom survive unscathed.

©2017 by Susana Lopez Rubio. Translation © 2019 by Achy Obejas. (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

What listeners say about The Price of Paradise

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.