The Henequen House of Sisal
A Novel of the Yucatán Caste War

About this book:

In the blistering heat of 1847 Yucatán, the henequen plantations run on borrowed time and buried hatred. At Hacienda San Antonio, Jacinto moves silently through the master's corridors—a Maya servant with the keys to the granary, the trust of Don Fernando, and a brother already whispering with rebels in the drying yards. When a lathered rider arrives from the south with news that Valladolid has fallen to Maya insurgents armed with English muskets, the brittle order of the estate begins to fracture. Jacinto must navigate a tightening net of suspicion: the overseer's whip, the master's paranoia, and his own kin gathering in the shadows of the agave fields.

Against a landscape of "green gold" that binds the world's ships but starves the people who harvest it, *The Henequen House of Sisal* unfolds the Caste War through eyes rarely seen in historical fiction—the house servant who polishes silver while his people sharpen machetes, the overseer who smells rebellion in the wind, the master who locks his gates against a tide he cannot name. Rich with the smells of fermented agave, limestone dust, and woodsmoke, this is a novel of divided loyalties where every choice carries the weight of generations, and the line between survival and betrayal shifts with each toll of the cracked chapel bell.