The Last Tree In Paradise

Extremadura, 1756. Gabriel de Velasco is the third child of a humble family who dreams of traveling across the seas and becoming a soldier and explorer like his older brother Alvar. But his family’s poverty leaves him no other option than the seminary. As a Jesuit brother wounded by an impossible love, Gabriel dreams more than ever of escaping to a faraway land.

Ternate, the Moluku Islands, the Indian Ocean, 1756. Cintia is a young illegitimate mixed-race child who lives in the stately home of her Aunt Eleonora, who is married to Willem Wisser, a bitter man with an icy stare and director of the Dutch East India Company. She is raised amid the freedom of the woods and nature with her cousin Cornelia, with whom she shares a bond so close they think of themselves as sisters.

Fate will make the paths of Gabriel and Cintia cross in the Philippines, where they both run to escaping their fate. Their struggle to defend the indigenous peoples in the face of Dutch exploitation and their love for nature will conjoin their lives in an exotic land of hidden ports inhabited by ferocious men trafficking in spices and beautiful women.

With stunning prose and an incredible narrative force, The Last Tree in Paradise is a novel that tells a marvelous story about cloves that will transport us to a wonderful world where trees have souls.