The Divine Husband

The Story

Maria de las Nieves's story unfolds among an unforgettable cast of characters striving for love or success in late-nineteenth-century Central America: Paquita, her lifelong best friend and nemesis, who begins a beautiful and impetuous schoolgirl and ends up hosting one of Gilded Age New York's celebrated salons; Mack Chinchilla, the Yankee-Indio entrepreneur intent on winning Maria de las Nieves's hand; a stuffy British diplomat looking after the Queen's interest in the isthmus, and his own in our heroine; Mr.