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9781971973050_FC.jpg

The Heart Has Its Reasons and Its Own Velocity by Julie Trimingham

$17.95

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.

Publication Date: January 19, 2027
Paperback: 134 pages
ISBN: 9781971973050

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.

Publication Date: January 19, 2027
Paperback: 134 pages
ISBN: 9781971973050

PRAISE FOR The Heart has its reasons and its own velocity

“A novel of quiet passion and rare beauty, The Heart Has Its Reasons and Its Own Velocity is a testament to the power of pure, uncluttered language—a confluence of feelings and physicality that will draw you back, line after graceful, memorable, line.”—Gina Nahai, author of The Luminous Heart of Jonah S.

“Julie Trimingham’s impressive debut novel unfolds like a fever dream. Written with sensual and intoxicating prose, The Heart Has Its Reasons and Its Own Velocity is an original love story that may linger with you long after you close this slender book.”—Jim Lynch, author of The Highest Tide

“Julie Trimingham’s The Heart Has Its Reasons and Its Own Velocity is a terrific read that will leave you questioning right and wrong, and the bond between mother and child. Trimingham’s observations—of Havana’s corroded beauty, of a lover who can’t love, of a baby’s easy joy—are not just exact but piercing. Literary yet fast-paced, electric yet refined, this is a hurricane of a book, by an author to keep on watching.”—Kristen den Hartog, author of The Girl Giant

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julie Trimingham’s short stories have been published in Prism Review, december, Freefall, Cutthroat, and terrain.org magazines. She studied Fine Arts/Painting at Yale University and Directing at the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto. She divides her time between Bellingham, WA and Montreal.