My Featured Book of Color, Pick of the Day book is Tell Me Something True (Grand Central Publishing) by Leila Cobo. The tale is divided between two voices: classical pianist Gabriella, the daughter, deals with the past, in the form of her mother, Helena’s personal diary. After discovering that Helena had never loved gardening, living in the Hollywood Hills, had never wanted to marry her successful movie producer husband, and perhaps had never wanted Gabriella, she is forced to come to terms with the reality that maybe, just maybe, her childhood wasn’t the perfect fairytale she had always thought. Meanwhile, Gabriella unexpectedly finds herself drawn to Angel, a music producer and son of the head of Colombia’s main drug cartel. Suddenly, she is thrown into an illicit love affair where she risks losing her own husband and child. Reflecting on her present and future, she begins to question if perhaps she had misjudged the choices her mother had made.
Leila Cobo is a Colombian native from Cali and a renowned journalist and former concert pianist, herself. Cobo is Executive Director of Latin Content & Programming for Billboard and is also a contributor to NPR. She currently resides in Key Biscanye, Fl. With her husband and children.
Jeff Rivera is the author of “Forever My Lady” and founder of GumboWriters.com.