La Mesa de Abajo is out today — a novel in Spanish written for people who are learning the language, and the first of five books in Escala Técnica, a series that moves city to city across Latin America.
The story starts in Mexico City, where Valentina Reyes runs a travel channel with one rule: get off the plane, don’t stay at the layover. She has come to film a restaurant people are talking about, and a few blocks from it a family is being offered money to leave the home they have lived in for years. Nobody is forcing anyone. That’s what everyone keeps saying.
Valentina keeps asking why they are leaving, and the answer takes her a long way from what she was sent to film.
It’s written for readers at B1 — roughly the point where you can follow a conversation about something familiar and handle most of what a trip throws at you. The documents in it belong to Valentina’s world rather than a newsroom: Instagram posts, message threads and group chats, emails, a video intro, a municipal permit, a restaurant menu, a relocation agreement, and a page of her own notebook at the end of every chapter.
Four more books follow her across the region, and the same name keeps surfacing underneath each one — the series page has more on where that goes.
Most readers take it over a few weeks rather than a few sittings, with a glossary and a language note closing each chapter. It’s available as an eBook, and the book page carries the length, the reading time and the retailer links.
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La Mesa de Abajo
Escala Técnica, Libro 1
Mexico City, Mexico
Valentina comes to Roma Norte to film a restaurant everyone's talking about. A few blocks away, a family is being offered money to leave the apartment they've lived in for years. No one is forcing them. That's what everyone keeps saying.
Not sure you’re B1 yet? Find your level first.
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