Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I enjoyed this! I've always loved stories that explore family dynamics across generations, and thought the plot was engaging. It became very easy for me to root for Isla, especially since she demonstrated such obvious personal growth. I learned a lot about Puerto Rico and its culture as I kept reading, and I commend the author for taking the time to write out a story that was so clearly personal to her and her experience. I found myself fascinated by the mystery and appreciated the way it was explored through Isla's gift as a cuentista. I also thought that the discussion of privilege woven throughout Isla's development was interesting and well-written. Overall, I am very glad I picked this up and I would recommend.

Thank you so much for giving me the chance to read and rate this book! I truly appreciate it. Hoping for more titles in the future.

This delightful debut is both haunting and touching. In it, you follow Isla, a Puerto Rican teenager who finds she has an odd skill: When someone in her family dies, she is transported into a vision from their past. “The Storyteller’s Death,” drenched in magic and woven together with a string of generations-old secrets, makes for a rich, compelling tale perfect for spooky season. With the turn of each page, you peel back more layers of Isa’s history while discovering more of Cardinal’s masterful storytelling. “The Storyteller’s Death” is a must-add to your October reading list.

Thank you Sourcebooks and Netgalley for the gifted e-arc. I loved this story from the very beginning. Its my first book by Ann Davila Cardinal and I'm really looking forward going through her backlist. I am not Puerto Rican but my parents were immigrants so I could relate so much to going back and forth between two countries. The coming of age story of Isla and becoming a storyteller of her family was fascinating. She is given the gift when her grandmother dies and starts to see the past of her family and all its dark secrets. It felt very much like reading an adult version of Encanto, which I loved. Highly recommend!

A story rich with family history, emotion and culture! We follow Isla as she lives in NYC during the school year and then visits her extended family members in Puerto Rico in the summers. She slowly picks up the family traditions of learning how to tell the families stories. Tragedy hits and her life changes forever.

This was a fun book that was creatively done. I kind of got bored mid-book and wanted to feel more connected to the characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the advance e-copy of this book.

There was always some old woman dying in the backroom when I was a child . . .

The first line is a perfect example of how to hook your reader, though the setting of Puerto Rico by an #ownvoice author did the job initially. The Storyteller's death is a coming of age, recogning with family trauma, secrets, and bigotry, as well as a whodunit. The set up for Isla's life is visceral with death and child neglect mixed with brilliant summers on the island.
I wished the set up had been better balanced with the plot's promise of visions and murder mystery but the set up was equally important. I think a dual pov with someone in the past could have made the murder mystery more intriguing too as it was a slow introduction to the murder and the players in that role. The murder itself felt more like a stepping stone in Isla's more important journey: learning she belonged though she is a "gringa" from the US who is only "half" Puerto Rican, which the author handles well based on her own experience. Isla must also realize her white and wealthy privilege, and her lack of knowledge about the political environment of her island and people who are half of her as well. It's a fantastic read to learn a little more about the history of the island without getting bogged down in the issues.

I was hooked on this story from the beginning. Isla’s summers spent in Puerto Rico with her family were my favorite chapters. Ann Davila Cardinal brought Puerto Rico to life with her colorful descriptions and characters. The book is well paced and doesn’t drag. The storytellers and their history were intriguing.
Advanced reader copy courtesy of the publishers at NetGalley for review.

Thanks so much to the publisher and Net Galley for a chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
This story was captivating. Like a more grown up version of the Disney movie Encanto, this story deals with family secrets, race and class issues.

Isla, a young American woman visits her family in Puerto Rico for extended periods each summer. While there time slows, and she forget the troubles at home in New Jersey. The author does a beautiful job of describing all the joys and insecurities of being 18. Suddenly one of the family “ Story Tellers” dies, and Isla begins having visions, reliving a pivotal moment from the recently deceased relative’s life. The vision is hyper real and comes at the same time each day. She tries to talk about it, but is quickly hushed. There are many things this family doesn’t talk about. She begins to fear mental illness.
At first the visions are fun and interesting, like reading an old love letter. Soon they turn dangerous, when one in particular wants the truth of a murder to come out. Imagine witnessing the same murder- every day at 2pm . Isla must dig deeper into the past to try to find a way to stop them from haunting her forever.
Recommend.

A young girl named Isla discovers she has “visions” sent from the dead. She is unsure if this is a curse or a gift. She has a vision from a dead relative that continues to torment her until she can finally unravel the hidden family secret. This story and drew me in initially but I found that as the story progressed it was a bit too tame for my tastes for a spooky scary story.

Based on the premise, I really wanted to like this book but it is so poorly written and has such unlikeable characters that I could not. Don't listen to the hype-save your money.

In the 1970s, 8 yr. old Isla Larsen Sanchez is sent from New Jersey to Puerto Rico by her mother to live with relatives while Isla’s father is terminally ill. Isla returns to New Jersey after her father’s death, Her mother thought it would be easier on Isla to not see her dead father. Her mother continues to have Isla spend summers in Puerto Rico. Her grandmother tells her stories every summer. When her grandmother dies, Isla is 18 yrs. Old. She learns that she comes from a line of storytellers including her deceased grandmother. Isla is seeing visions from her deceased relatives. When Isla visions turn violent, she needs to discover the secrets her family has hidden as the visions may harm or maybe kill her. Will she find the secrets she needs to stay safe?

The novel is a multilayer story. The plot is a compelling blend of life, loss, love, family, friendship, secrets, surprises, heartbreak, culture, community, magical realism, and resentments. I enjoyed the theme of hope throughout the novel. Written expressively family life is a combination of all the messy, challenging, heartbreaking, complicated moments, as well as all the lovely, wonderful, touching times that happen in-between. It’s a novel that is remarkably unforgettable.

Families are built upon the history of those who came before them. Before genalogy sites, this historu was shared through the stories the elders told of when they were younger. These Storytellers filled an important place in families; without them, history would be lost. Ann Davila Cardinal has taken this fact and built a very unique story of a young woman who finds herself the Storyteller for her generation. A unique story line she has developed into a beautifully told mystery revolving around this Storyteller's efforts to solve a murder from the past.
The background of this mystery moves from New Jersey to Puerto Rico, weaving time into the stories Isla learns from her Aunt and Grandmother until she herself becomes the storyteller. The movement of the story is seamless. Isla learns her family history, good and bad, until the story of an unsolved murder binds her until she can solve this crime.
A wonderful read for me.

The Storyteller’s Death revolves around teenage Isla, who has recently lost her father. Her mother, seemingly unable to cope, ships Ilsa off to her family in Puerto Rico; a place where Isla spent many of her summers growing up. Death follows her to Puerto Rico, as her grandma also dies. Isla begins to discover her family’s strange past, and inherits a gift of being able to see visions of the past, some of which are incredibly unpleasant.

I loved the central character of Isla. She gets bounced around her family from a young age, has a deeply unreliable mother, and is burdened with a supernatural gift that is genuinely traumatizing. Throughout all of this, she is so unbelievably strong; a wonderfully tenacious young woman.

Unfortunately I didn’t feel like all the elements didn’t quite blend together to form a cohesive work. As single entities, the bildungsroman, the murder mystery, the Marquez-like magical realism, were all well-written, but there was a disconnect for me.

I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley and Sourcebooks. I absolutely loved this book! The characters were relatable and flawed. The descriptions of locations and food made me feel like I was right there with them. As a Puerto-Rican "gringa" my heart swelled with pride. I love the stories that were webbed throughout. Isla is a strong and determined female lead. This story was interesting all the way through. Read this book! Seriously!

A lovely YA story of family legends and secrets, of hurt and healing, and a search for belonging, set in 1970s Puerto Rico, threaded through with magical realism.

I loved reading at the end how the author's own family inspired many of the details and cuentos. Her love for the island and its abundant flora, the comfort of its food and people, as well as its complexities came through on every page and added depth to this enjoyable read.

The Storyteller’s Death Earns 5/5 Storyteller Visions…Compelling & Clever!

Isla Larsen Sanchez had been visiting Puerto Rico every summer for near ten years suffering through the loss of her father, her mother’s addiction, and feelings she doesn’t truly belong in either world. When she turned eighteen, her life became more complicated with the death of grandmother, a woman who was belligerent, critical, and verbally abusive to everyone, especially Isla’s mother. Isla and her mother arrived for the funeral, her mother, unfortunately, a little worse for wear, but Isla is relieved to find a way to excuse herself from the family sharing stories of Abuela. But, peace is elusive when her quiet moment in interrupted by a sound on the roof. She investigates and is shocked to see a clouded vision playing out in the shadows. It’s one of her abuela’s stories, yet unlike the tale she’d heard many times, there’s a gunshot. The gunshot reminds her of Tia Alma’s delirious and curious comment made years before. Isla tries to share what she saw with her great-aunt Alma, but she’s met with frightening threats, a side of her aunt she’d never seen before. She’s told to keep what she saw to herself, but how can she when the visions keep repeating themselves?

All Kinds of Bueno! I was thrilled with having gone beyond my typical cozy genre with Ann Dávila Cardinal’s first adult book. This extraordinary drama was complex, yet compelling, following Isla from the young age of eight years old to eighteen interacting with her Puerto Rican family and exploring the mystery behind the visions, the conflicts, and the dangers posed by reoccurring images left by recently departed relatives: storytellers. Isla is forced to experience these images which spurs her to seek the shocking truths about the death of her great-grandfather and how it relates to her grandmother and her Tia Alma. Isla evolves in strength and confidence through her journey to solve why, how, and for what purpose her visions have invaded her sleepless nights, and through her search she discovers a way to reconnect with her mother and her Puerto Rican roots. “Couldn’t put it down” brilliant!

Ann Dávila Cardinal’s writing is easy to read and witty, rich with culture, island insights, historical references, and native language easily translated. I was totally absorbed in Isla’s journey, surprising details challenging my efforts to figure out the connections, the bruised family dynamics, and her navigating various relationships. Her style is filled with descriptive language and dialog illustrating well the various settings, multi-generational characters, and varied personalities. I relished every chapter with its insightful titles and found relief and satisfaction when truth was revealed, positive paths forward were taken, and a glimpse that Isla had found where best she belonged. Don’t miss the “Reading Group Guide” with in-depth discussion topics for book clubs or personal reflection, and “A Conversation with the Author” offering insights into Ann Dávila Cardinal’s inspiration, experiences, and personal connection to literature. Candidate for a Top Surprise for 2022!

This is a phenomenal read!

Isla lives in New Jersey with her mother. She spends the summers in Puerto Rico with her mother’s family. She doesn’t really feel like she belongs in either world. This is magnified when she realizes that she has inherited the family’s ability to see her ancestors stories.

I loved watching Isla as she muddled her way from a young girl to a young adult, learning about the world and about her family and their place in it along the way. The Storyteller’s Death would make an excellent book club choice!

Wonderfully written a book of family of vivid images of Puerto Rico.I was drawn in to the story the characters from first page to last.A book I will be recommending an author to follow.#netgalley #sourcebooks.

When Isla Larsen Sanchez was eight years old, her mother Elena sent her to Puerto Rico by herself for the first time, flying from New Jersey in the care of a flight attendant, as was usual for the 1970s. Ordinarily, Isla would spend summers in the town where her mother grew up, with both her parents and extended family. But when Isla’s Scandinavian father falls ill, Elena decides to stay behind to care for him while sending Isla to stay with Elena’s formidable though loving Tia Alma.

Isla has no cause to doubt her grandaunt’s love for her, unlike her contentious relationship with Alma’s sister, her own grandmother Marisol. Abuela has always been exacting, if not outright cruel, to both her daughter and granddaughter. There is, however, no resisting the allure of her cuentista, or storytelling, abilities as an older Isla recalls them:

QUOTE
What I loved best was that her stories always had a hint of magic woven through them, like a silver thread that glinted now and again. My abuela was never particularly kind to me, always criticizing and pointing out where I fell short compared to my cousins, but her tales were funny and nostalgic, and it was never clear if they were true. And, as I would come to learn, it didn’t really matter.
END QUOTE

When Tia Alma reacts poorly to an innocent exchange between Isla and Jose, the son of a native laborer, the first seeds of doubt are sown in Isla’s heart as to the uncompromising love of her beloved Puerto Rican family. Bad enough that her mother seems to be falling further and further into the bottle as the years go by. Things come to a head when Isla turns eighteen and begins to literally see the stories of her extended family come to life in increasingly intrusive ways.

With little to no support from the Sanchezes, Isla learns how to control these maddening visions by herself and lay them to rest. She’s actually rather intrigued by the ability these stories give her to consider her family history from a perspective otherwise left unspoken by her selectively tight-lipped relatives. But when the cuentos start to manifest in tangibly violent ways, Isla begins to fear for her physical safety, even before she finds herself witnessing the true circumstances of her great-grandfather’s death. According to her family, Bisabuelo had had a terminal illness. Her visions however show that he was murdered.

When her usual methods do nothing to lay this latest story to rest, Isla decides that the only way to stop the visions from recurring is to investigate what really happened that fateful day, no matter what ugly secrets she ends up bringing to light. Her granduncle Ramon, who is usually the most forthcoming of his generation, has this to tell her about his father:

QUOTE
“Those were difficult times here on the island. Your great-grandfather wanted to protect the life that his great-grandfather had built after arriving from España, and in his youth it was a time of great unrest. But he stayed strong and was proud of his pure blood, just two generations from Europe. And you should be too, Isla. Not one drop of blood, ni una gota de sangre, that is not European. Yes, you should be proud.” My great-uncle sat silently now, staring at the ground ahead of him.
END QUOTE

Aghast at this racism but not quite sure how to grapple with it, Isla embarks on an investigation that has her confronting not only her island’s history of race and class prejudice, but also what it means to be an unwitting child of privilege who never quite feels like she belongs.

The Storyteller’s Death is a frank coming-of-age tale featuring a heroine thrust into adulthood by her mother’s negligence yet who somehow remains curiously unsophisticated. I very much sympathized with Isla’s constant discomfort at being on the periphery of her many and disparate social circles, even as I wondered what it was about her that made it so difficult for her to adapt, chameleon-like, as her cousin Maria did. While this was Ann Davila Cardinal’s debut adult novel, it felt like it hadn’t really left behind the trappings of its Young Adult predecessors in her oeuvre, with a linear plot directing its naive heroine inexorably – and with only superficial self-examination – towards the truth.

For all that, it’s a moving novel that isn’t afraid to engage with important postcolonial issues as it seeks to reconcile Isla’s ideals with the truth about her family. It’s also a wonderful love letter to the natural and cultural beauty of Puerto Rico, particularly in the 1970s era in which it’s set. Above all, it’s a tribute to the power of storytelling, and to the legacy that stories can carry from one generation to the next.

Cardinal weaves an intoxicating tale of family secrets and lies that are uncovered by Isla, who begins to see visions when she is 18. This moves between the mainland US and Puerto Rico, where Isla spends her summers listening to her grandmother's stories. Her family has a long history of political activism but there's darkness there too, including a murder mystery. This is a quick read - in part due to the format- but it's one which is evocative and thoughtful, Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Intriguing.