I can’t begin to describe the plot so will quote this from the Kirkus Review: In Malyerba – like Macondo, a mythic town that ``progress had yet to visit'' – a house is taken over by bees, a woman is crystallized into honey, a mummy-like mother-in-law floats toward Heaven, and protagonist Ana Magdalena is expelled from convent school for stripping naked while saving a classmate from drowning.

This is a wonderful send-up of magical realism, with a decidedly feminist bent. I laughed out loud at the ridiculous antics and over-the-top descriptions. Pineda is a wonderful writer, with beautiful phrasing, interesting characters, deliciously wicked scenes of passion, and a perfect sense of timing. I was engaged and pulled into the story from page one, and when I finished, I wanted to start from the beginning and read it again. ( )

A fantastical fable about love, family, religion, sex, and business. Ana Magdelena finds her life's calling and a way to support herself and her penniless writer husband in her aunt's bordello in this witty and sexy tale which perfectly balances a sweet and funny story with a biting satire of religion, politics, patriarchy, and business values. Every page was a delight to read because of Pineda's knack for storytelling and natural flow. ( )

Love Queen of the Amazon
This was a playful novel about a young girl, raised as a "good" girl in upper-class Peruvian tradition, who becomes a prostitute to gain what her "good" marriage doesn't provide (love and money). Ana Magdalena Figueroa is a young woman whose mother, deserted by her husband, has lost her means of comfortable living. She lives in the family mansion, but cannot pay her servants and has barely any money. Ana's father comes home periodically, but is notorious for his affairs and actually lives at the local brothel, owned by his sister. Her mother wants Ana to marry well to avoid the fate she herself has lived.

But there are pitfalls every step of the way. The pious boarding school expels Ana when she is seen in her petticoats in public, although she has just saved a classmate from drowning. The search for a suitable husband seems hopeless when finally, the matchmaker finds a writer of national stature who represents himself as wealthy and devoted to Ana. In reality, he has no money, and is scheming to marry because he thinks his new bride is well-off. And Ana is actually in love with Sergio Ballado, a young dockworker, who is not seen to be a good match. On her wedding night, through a series of small calamities, Ana ends up alone at her aunt's brothel, scared and unhappy. Until Sergio walks through the door, and Ana boldly takes him as a client. The two fall in love, and make plans to be together: she will work as a whore to make money, and he will lead explorers up the Amazon by riverboat, sending them to her on their way home to encourage profits.

The novel's humour is both farcical (for example, when Ana moves the whorehouse into her own home and tells her husband all the prostitutes are servants) and playful (Darwin is a visitor to the brothel on his way back to England). At times, it's even self-mocking and sly (Ana's writer husband thinks the height of the couple's intimacy comes when he reads aloud to her; Ana couldn't be more bored with this and schemes to avoid it). I enjoyed how the novel turned the tables on women's accepted roles. But it's interesting how the main character, though intelligent and bold (in that she is not interested in following a gendered double standard), still has to make everything appear "normal." Although her writer husband has lied about his money and doesn't seem interested in her sexually, Ana still has to maneuver any method of making money (she tries other tactics before becoming a whore). I realize some of this is for the sake of creating a farce; all this subterfuge allows for comedy. But I am a realist reader at heart, and farce (as well as magical realism, also very present in the novel) often seem either pointless or lazy to me on the writer's part. Still, it was a fun book. ( )