Learning To Stay: A Colombian Love Story

She helps others recover. He owns a crumbling hotel on the Caribbean coast. Neither knows how to let someone in. Valeria Restrepo has spent eight years building walls. As a drug rehab counselor in Medellín, she sits with addicts and pulls them back from the edge, but she never lets anyone close.

Not since her brother died of an overdose in a bathroom she still cannot forget. Mateo Arrieta inherited a boutique hotel in Santa Marta and along with it a family reputation stained by corruption and shame. When a guest nearly dies of an overdose in one of his rooms, he calls the only person he knows who might understand. He does not expect her to say yes.

He does not expect her to change everything. From the cool mountains of Medellín to the sweltering heat of Carnival in Santa Marta, Valeria and Mateo circle each other in a courtship of almost kisses and phone calls that last for hours. She tells him she is not a recovery project. He tells her he is not looking to be saved.

But the sea does not ask permission. Neither does love. Set against the backdrop of two Colombias, the industrial, fast paced mountain city and the relaxed, Afro Caribbean coast, Learning To Stay - A Colombian Love Story is a novel about shame and forgiveness, control and surrender, and the courage it takes to stop running and finally stay.