The Heart Has Its Reasons and Its Own Velocity

Set in Cuba in the early aughts, The Heart Has Its Reasons and Its Own Velocity is a deeply felt debut novel steeped in miracles and motherhood, perfect for fans of Louise Erdrich and Megha Majumdar Actress Mia is adrift. Tucked away in snowy Montreal, she feels wrecked on the shoals of her own life, aimless as she ages out of the film roles given to beautiful young women. When her longtime yet noncommittal boyfriend Alex asks if she’d like to go to Cuba with him on a research trip, she says yes on a whim. In Havana, Mia gets swept up in wild music and color and her own long-forgotten desires—especially after she meets Carlos, a piano player and local fixer whose connection to Alex complicates what they might be to each other. Yet she can find nothing to anchor herself to. Until, one searingly hot day, wandering alone on the outskirts of a town, Mia comes across a baby abandoned in a parked car. What builds from there is a gale-force storm. What seems at first a simple task—to save the baby—becomes ever more complex as the baby’s mother appears and Mia finds herself torn between Carlos and Alex, and an older, unspoken longing she dares not name. As a hurricane whirls toward the island, Mia must decide how far she will go in the name of love, and how love has cast her in her own story: as sinner or saint.