Outside the Bones

Large metal pot used during a ritual

    Lyn Di Iorio's, novel "Outside the Bones", is a novel about voodoo, greed, power, and witchcraft. It takes place in Spanish Harlem and Puerto Rico. This novel is a fiction, and a little mysterious, erotic, verve, and humorous. In the beginning of the novel I started to feel bad for Aurora, and thought we as women can relate to her situation by being hurt and betrayed by a man, but as I kept reading she was the town "puta".

    Aurora met and fell in love with Chico, he was a nice-talking, sweet-walking fine "puto" of a Puerto Rican. The women found him irresistible, and he was a musician. Chico and Aurora met when they were young and naive, a struggling musician, patient wife, and they lived in a zinc roofed shack home. Chico was married to Aurora, and got chased out of Puerto Rico by some thugs for cheating on Aurora, they nearly killed him. He moves to New York City. Aurora ends up pregnant, and gives birth to a baby girl, Hilesca, which Chico believes is his baby, but we later find out that it's not his baby. Aurora and the baby end up getting sick, and Chico is scrambling to get money to pay for the doctor visit. He finds a side job gardening, and that's when he meets, Isis. The Senators wife.  Isis had seen Chico play, and she was already imagining the things he could do to her just by watching him trim the leaves.

    The Senator was a known womanizer, and suspicious of his wife's behavior. He found out about Chico, and sent his thugs after him. Chico lost his wife and mistress. Chico, thought his daughter died, while he was fooling around with, Isis, but she comes back into his life. Fina, was a little suspicious of his "daughters" behavior. Sitting on his lap, kissing him on his lips, trying to seduce him in bed, wearing inappropriate clothes around him. Fina, kept a very close eye on her.

    Chico later finds out while being tied up to a chair that Hilesca is not his child. He starts to look at Ferrera and Hilesca,  and starts noticing the resemblance.

    Aurora hated Isis, Isis destroyed her first life. Isis and Aurora were both pregnant from the Senator.  So in a sense I guess this was revenge. Aurora was tired of being hurt, and she hurt back as much as they hurt her. She was raped, betrayed, lied to, and she was just looking for a man who could give her a child, and help with the child, and so she sought out, Alberto Ferrera. The Senator. Isis husband. Aurora had it out for Isis, she knew what she was doing. You could say it was Chico's fault Aurora turned into a whore. Some might say she had become the worst type of "puta", a woman who would go with anybody and do anything.

    When I first purchased this book, I thought to myself this is not something I would read, but as I started reading I couldn't put it down. It's very intriguing, and again since it took place where I grew up I was very interested. I have seen a lot of botanica stores growing up, but my family was never into that, but I knew a few people who believed in it. Great and easy read!