Toronto, Ontario -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/18/2013 -- While in the present day it’s often imagined as a chaotic city chock-full of smog with just as much crime, Mexico City has always held a charm and allure that millions are unable to resist. Taking a trip back in time, D. Grant Fitter’s debut novel revisits 1940s Mexico City, where one young man is coming of age with capricious gusto.

‘City of Promises’ is more than a novel; it’s a compelling fusion of fact and fiction, telling the story of a place that both touched the hearts and shattered the dreams of millions.

Synopsis:

"They call this the city of promise, Arturo, but it is a city of promises and very few of those promises are true."

Passionate music, latin dancers, compulsive romancers. Smoke filled rooms and bottles of rum. One lover lost, two others will come. In the 1940s, Mexico City is at its freewheeling best.

Vivid imagination texture history to capture the drama of a golden decade.

Cadillac cars and splendid avenues. There's a US ambassador, the president, real life film and music stars. Diego Rivera, Frida, Cole Porter, too. Stately residences and chic neighborhoods in a city where symbols of affluence contradict sprawling slums and squalor of central city tenements ... and life.

A complex undercity where the "respectable people" are the mobsters and the forces of greed and political privilege keep it that way.

"Well my darling one, at least you come looking for me every time there is a new bullet hole in you."

Young, ambitious Arturo Fuentes is caught in their sights. He didn't arrive from Veracruz in search of a marginal life. Arturo is here to make promises of "the good life" come true. Problem is, he's pinned in a battle the common man isn't allowed to win.

As the author comments, his fictional narrative doubles up as a rare insight into life south of the U.S. border.

“It might take place in the 1940s but the Mexico of today is characterized by a romantic attachment to the golden decade of artistic and cultural accomplishment that defined a nation. Not only does this story provide an understanding of our near yet very distant neighbours, the work will bring out the pride of Mexican and other Latino Americans while at the same time fuelling their ire for the inequalities and corruption that shaped their lives,” explains Fitter.

Since its release, the book has garnered a consistent string of rave reviews.

“This is a story ultimately about those consequential choices and decisions we make in life, which define and shape the course of the future, for all. It is about smouldering passion and heated jealousy that pierces ones inner core,” says Goodreads reviewer Lucinda Fountain of the UK.

Double award winning short story author Patricia Anderson of Canada was equally as impressed, saying, “The attention to detail and historical accuracy is remarkable, suggesting the author’s passion for recreating this unique Golden Age, with its sultry smoke-filled nightclubs and cabarets, Rumberas and Latin music. It was an intellectually stimulating and delightful read.”

‘City of Promises’, published by CreateSpace, is available now: http://amzn.to/17mBbBV

About the Author: D. Grant Fitter
D. Grant Fitter is a citizen of North America. Born in Ontario, Canada and educated in Colorado, USA, he is convinced he was Mexican in his previous life. How else to explain such a strong attraction to Mexico and all things Mexican, including his wife.

His business career includes long stints of work in Mexico before yielding to a pesky urge to pursue sports journalism for seventeen years. Meanwhile, Fitter's Mexican roots continued to call. City of Promises is the product of his curiosity to understand why the culture of our close neighbours is so distant from our own.