Breathing Through the Wound, A Novel

**A remarkable psychological thriller by award-winning author Victor del Arbol**

Eduardo Quintana is a broken man. The tragedy that cost him the lives of his family is a wound he daily tears open afresh. The once renowned painter wallows in grief, subsisting on alcohol and drugs, eking out a living with whatever painting commissions he can get.

But when he is approached by a mysterious woman who wants him to paint a portrait of the man who killed her son, he soon becomes entangled in a web of deceit in which no one, and nothing, is as they seem. With each brushstroke, Eduardo opens doors that were meant to have stayed shut — doors that, once opened, can never be closed.

Set against the haunted and unsettling backdrop of a Madrid plagued by unrest and economic upheaval, *The Heart Tastes Bitter* is a dark and compelling story of the search for redemption, revenge, and love — and the cruel power of fate.