THE SKINNY YEARS is Released

Beck & Branch Publishers will release The Skinny Years, the fourth novel by award-winning author Raul Ramos y Sanchez in June 2016. The coming-of-age period piece is intended for adult readers. Set in 1960s Miami, The Skinny Years follows the travails of Victor "Skinny" Delgado.

A pudgy eight-year-old in 1959 when the Delgados arrive in the U.S. fleeing the Castro regime in Cuba, Skinny's once-wealthy family moves from a mansion in Havana to a roach-infested bungalow in Miami's low-rent Wynwood district. Over the next ten years the Delgados struggle to survive in this strange new land. Only one constant remains as Skinny grows from 8 to 18. He longs in vain for the girl of his dreams: his neighbor Janice Bockman who seems everything American-and everything he's not.

Laced with humor, the novel's colorful characters provide fresh insights into the cold war, race relations, American traditions, and the youth counter culture of the sixties through the quirky perspective of a Cuban exile family.

The Cuban-born Ramos is the author of the acclaimed Class H Trilogy: America Libre, House Divided and Pancho Land from Grand Central Publishing and Beck & Branch Publishers. The author has received multiple awards and recognition including Best Novel - International Latino Book Awards, Violet Crown Fiction Finalist - Writers League of Texas, Books-Into-Movies Award Winner - Latino Literacy Now, USA Today Summer Reads Author, and Book Festival Featured Author - Ohioana Library Association.

"Some readers will think The Skinny Years is quite a departure from my previous novels," said Ramos. "The scope of the story is smaller, to be sure. But I believe the essence of my work remains the same. I'd like provide readers with an engaging experience and finish the book feeling that beneath our disparities of culture, color and creed, we're alike in many more ways than we're different."

For more information contact:
Margaret Lawler
Beck & Branch Publishers
PO Box 445 - Putney, VT 05346
beckandbranch@gmail.com
(858) 529-5371

High resolution images for book cover and author available at:
www.RaulRamos.com

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