Her past lives hold the truth. Her curse holds the key. Love is the price either way.

Marisol Varela, a Cuban American muralist living in present-day Madrid, isn’t just dealing with a failed engagement, she is confronting a generational curse that has doomed every woman in her family to a life devoid of lasting love. Desperate to break the pattern, Mar dives headfirst into past life regression therapy, determined to uncover the root of her lineage’s heartbreak.

Transported across centuries, Marisol relives three tumultuous lives as a rebellious female painter in 1482 Florence, a shrewd prostitute entangled in espionage during the final years of the Spanish Inquisition in 1808 Madrid, and a resilient gay man navigating the precarious waters of the 1980s SoHo AIDS epidemic. No matter the era, fate’s cruel hand always snatches away true love.

Amid the upheaval of her incarnations, one figure appears again and again, Dario, an enigmatic Italian poet whose magnetic presence seems to transcend time itself. As their fates intertwine across centuries, Marisol must confront the weight of her family’s curse, along with the possibility that true, timeless love may not be what she always imagined.

Published in English and Spanish, this genre-blending novel explores immigration, gender, queerness, and art as survival, offering an emotionally resonant, book club–ready story.

Sus vidas pasadas contienen la verdad. La maldición es la clave. El amor es el precio.

Marisol Varela, una muralista cubanoamericana que vive en el Madrid contemporáneo, no solo intenta superar un compromiso fallido, también debe enfrentarse a una maldición generacional que ha condenado a todas las mujeres de su familia a una vida sin amor duradero. Decidida a romper ese patrón, Mar se somete a la terapia de regresión a vidas pasadas, convencida de que allí encontrará el origen del dolor que arrastra su linaje.

A lo largo de los siglos, Marisol revive tres existencias turbulentas: la de una pintora inconformista en la Florencia de 1482; la de una prostituta ingeniosa envuelta en una trama de espionaje en el Madrid de 1808, en los últimos años de la Inquisición; y la de un hombre gay resiliente que se haya sobreviviendo en pleno auge de la epidemia del SIDA en el SoHo de los años ochenta. En cada época, el destino se encarga de arrebatarle, una y otra vez, la oportunidad de un amor verdadero.

En medio del caos de estas vidas pasadas, una figura se repite constantemente: Dario, un poeta italiano cuya atracción parece desafiar las barreras del tiempo. A medida que sus historias se entrelazan a través de los siglos, Marisol deberá confrontar no solo el peso de la maldición familiar, sino la posibilidad de que el amor eterno - ese que siempre imaginó - no sea exactamente lo que parece.

Karla Montalván is a Cuban-born writer shaped by migration, memory, and longing. Born in Havana in 1994 during a severe economic crisis, she migrated to Ecuador as a child and later settled in Miami. A graduate of Miami Dade College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she has spent the past decade telling stories centered on identity, gender, and diaspora. Her work has appeared in People, People en Español, Cosmopolitan, and mitú. The Sun and All the Other Stars is her debut novel.

IG & TikTok: @thekarlamontalvan

Publisher: Elizabeth & Minnie Publishing (April 21, 2026)

ISBN13:

• Paperback (English): 978-1-7356469-1-6

• Paperback (Spanish): 978-1-7356469-2-3

• eBook (English): 978-1-7356469-3-0

• eBook (Spanish): 978-1-7356469-5-4

• Audiobook: 978-1-7356469-4-7