Agave Blues

Written by Ruthie Marlenée

Narrated by Stacy Gonzalez

Mix together a little family, drama, ghosts, and tequila, and you get a hell of a cocktail!

Sometimes, la sangre atrae, "the blood calls you back," and when Maya gets the call to go back to her agave roots to claim the body of her long-missing father, her world changes forever. Set against the backdrop of her childhood in Mexico, Agave Blues is the story of ailing attorney Maya, in a broken relationship and butting heads with her teenage daughter, Lily.

Maya swore never to return, but once she sets foot on mystical grounds, she uncovers her family's turbulent history and how tequila infuses deep secrets that have altered her life, both emotionally and physically.

She realizes what's missing in her life―magic, mystery, art, unconditional love, and the stories of her past, including the myth her father used to share with her about her grandfather, Pancho Villa. The fields seem to heal her and her relationships, so she extends her stay and reconnects with her family. But when she encounters the handsome yet haunted Antonio, a childhood crush resurfaces, only to cause her more grief as she tries to master the art of tequila.

Ruthie Marlenée is the Mexican-American author of Isabela's Island and Curse of the Ninth and is currently working on the sequel, And Still Her Voice. Marlenée's work can be found in several literary publications. She was born and raised in Orange County, California, and lives in Los Angeles and the desert in the Coachella Valley with her husband.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Everand Productions
• Release date: Feb 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781094454139

Ruthie Marlenée

Ruthie Marlene is a published novelist, an award-winning screenwriter, ghostwriter and poet. Shes earned a Writers Certificate With Distinction from UCLA and was a nominee for the James Kirkwood Literary Award for her novel Curse of the Ninth. Some of her work can be found in Silver Birch Press, Long Story Short and Los Angeles Poet Laureates Coiled Serpent Anthology. Her novel Agave Blues is coming out soon.

Reviews for Agave Blues

[Francois Pretorius · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

First few chapters with descriptions, descriptions and more descriptions, pathetic court scene, lengthy reliving of Papa telling why he indulges in Tequila, all of this word vomit, and yet nothing to hook the reader to want to continue to read on. What a waste of time. I am going to be very reluctant to start an audiobook labeled as a must listen and highly recommend.

[Alma Quillian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I absolutely loved this book. It had the magic often inherent with literature from Mexico. It also had wonderful life lessons about love and forgiveness.
Characters were interesting and well fleshed out. The botanical interest provided by centering around the agave plant was also of great interest to me. (The agave has always been one of my favorite plants)
There were some great lines in the book that I would like to remember when encountering some of life's lessons. I wish I had written them down.
Alma Q

[Theresa Corona · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I feel terrible giving it 2 stars because writing a book is of course no easy feat. This was so over done in wording and descriptions. Verbose like when a kid is trying to make their essay longer. It was painful to get through. None of it flowed naturally. The religious, cultural and tequila-making references all seemed like “let me see where I can stick this in my book”. I’m a middle-aged Chicana, I know the culture, the country, the religion and the tequila, you’d think I’d love it for its feeling of home, but instead it was hard to get through and seemed contrived and forced. I have about 26 chapter one’s I’ve written and never continued for fear my writing would sound like this and end up for sale at the Dollar Tree. In addition, the Spanish narration of this audiobook was TERRIBLE…. “La sangré ah-try-UH” ugggghhhhh, that’s not even how atrae is pronounced. That’s just for starters on the Spanish.