My Train Leaves at Three: A Novel
Natalie Guerrero
Jul 2025 · One World
5.0star
1 reviewreport
Ebook
256
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About this ebook
By a striking new voice in fiction, an electric coming-of-age novel that explores grief, family, sexuality, and love as an ambitious young woman from Washington Heights tries to make it on Broadway
“Guerrero leaves the reader not just enthralled and delighted but waiting with bated breath for what she will conjure up next.”—Xochitl Gonzalez, author of Anita de Monte Laughs Last
After her sister Nena’s sudden death, Xiomara, an Afro-Latina singer and actress born and raised in Washington Heights, is numb. With her sister gone, Xiomara, painfully close to thirty, is living in a tiny apartment with her ultra-Catholic Puerto Rican mother, and having the same shitty sex with the same shitty men that she’s been entertaining for years. Behind on rent despite two minimum-wage jobs, one of which involves singing show tunes while serving pancakes to tourists at Ellen’s Stardust Diner, Xiomara is bitingly cynical, especially in her grief, and barely treading water.
But when a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity falls into her lap—the chance to audition for Manny Santos, the most charismatic director of the moment—Xiomara sees a second chance to pursue the dream she thought she’d lost. Meanwhile, something about Santi, a new co-worker at the print shop where she spends half of her days photocopying other performers’ headshots, starts to tug at the threads of her apathy. Nothing is simple, and soon Xiomara finds herself interacting with the ugliest sides of the industry and the powerful men who control it. Sometimes the closer you are to your dreams, the further away you become from yourself, and as Xiomara grapples with this hard truth, she is forced to ask herself if she has what it takes to build a new shiny life without losing the truth of her old one.
With hopeful spirit and unapologetic energy, My Train Leaves at Three is a coming-of-age story about the balancing act between moving on and moving forward.
“Guerrero leaves the reader not just enthralled and delighted but waiting with bated breath for what she will conjure up next.”—Xochitl Gonzalez, author of Anita de Monte Laughs Last
After her sister Nena’s sudden death, Xiomara, an Afro-Latina singer and actress born and raised in Washington Heights, is numb. With her sister gone, Xiomara, painfully close to thirty, is living in a tiny apartment with her ultra-Catholic Puerto Rican mother, and having the same shitty sex with the same shitty men that she’s been entertaining for years. Behind on rent despite two minimum-wage jobs, one of which involves singing show tunes while serving pancakes to tourists at Ellen’s Stardust Diner, Xiomara is bitingly cynical, especially in her grief, and barely treading water.
But when a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity falls into her lap—the chance to audition for Manny Santos, the most charismatic director of the moment—Xiomara sees a second chance to pursue the dream she thought she’d lost. Meanwhile, something about Santi, a new co-worker at the print shop where she spends half of her days photocopying other performers’ headshots, starts to tug at the threads of her apathy. Nothing is simple, and soon Xiomara finds herself interacting with the ugliest sides of the industry and the powerful men who control it. Sometimes the closer you are to your dreams, the further away you become from yourself, and as Xiomara grapples with this hard truth, she is forced to ask herself if she has what it takes to build a new shiny life without losing the truth of her old one.
With hopeful spirit and unapologetic energy, My Train Leaves at Three is a coming-of-age story about the balancing act between moving on and moving forward.
Ratings and reviews
5.0
1 review
About the author
Natalie Guerrero is a writer based in Los Angeles. Her writing has been featured in publications such as Electric Literature, Byline, Goop, and Blavity. Guerrero’s long-form work includes “On Silence,” an essay published in Hungry Hearts (Dial Press) and Walking in My Joy (Amistad), a collection that Guerrero co-authored with actress Jenifer Lewis. Guerrero previously held positions with HarperCollins, WME Books, and Macro/M88. In her free time, she can be found walking her dog, Tupac, in the hills of Los Feliz.
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