Platas, Berta

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PLATAS, Berta
(Berta Platas Fuller)

PERSONAL:

Born in Havana, Cuba; married; children: three sons, one daughter. Education: Attended Georgia State University. Hobbies and other interests: Fine needlework, watercolor painting, reading, and making period costumes, dollhouse miniatures, and one-of-a-kind dolls.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Atlanta, GA.

CAREER:

Writer.

WRITINGS:

(As Berta Platas Fuller) Miami Heat = Pasión en Miami (novel; in English and Spanish), Kensington/Pinnacle (New York, NY), 1999.

(As Berta Platas Fuller) All of Me = Todo de mío (novel; in English and Spanish), Kensington/Pinnacle (New York, NY), 2000.

Livewire (novel), Kensington/Pinnacle (New York, NY), 2001.

Cinderella Lopez (novel), St. Martin's Griffin (New York, NY), 2006.

Work represented in anthologies, including Friday Night Chicas: Sexy Stories from "La Noche," St. Martin's Griffin (New York, NY), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS:

Berta Platas writes novels in a genre that some observers have dubbed "chica lit"—lighthearted, romantic stories about young U.S. Latinas. "Chica lit," like other types of so-called "chick lit," tends to "focus on the real-life concerns of regular women," Kerry Lengel explained in the Arizona Republic. Lengel continued: "The heroines tend to be middle-class professionals dealing with friendship, romance and career."

Miriam Gutierrez, the protagonist of the bilingual novel Miami Heat = Pasión en Miami, fits that description. She is running a cement contracting business founded by her grandfather; it is in precarious financial condition, but she is trying her best to improve the situation. Her mother is worried primarily about Miriam's marriage prospects, though, and she arranges for Miriam to meet a young man. It turns out that Miriam already knows him through her work and dislikes him. She soon changes her mind, but cultural differences—he is Anglo—and other factors complicate their developing romance. This setup makes for "a lively, fast-paced story," commented Cathy Sova in the Romance Reader. Sova added that "both the lead characters are warm and realistic," and she found the novel "sparkling … with a strong dash of humor."

Cinderella Lopez, as the title suggests, is a reworking of the Cinderella story with a modern-day Latina as its heroine. Cynthia "Cyn" Lopez is a bright, creative, twenty-four-year-old New Yorker who tolerates the cruelties of her two stepsisters, glamorous twin television personalities. She does so because she promised her father when he was dying that she would stay with them until she turned twenty-five, at which time she would receive a large inheritance. Her life brightens when she begins dating a man she met in a coffee shop, but she has no idea he heads the company that is buying the music-video station where she and her stepsisters work. When the truth comes out, it jeopardizes their relationship. Some reviewers thought the novel a bit clichéd yet entertaining. A Publishers Weekly critic, for example, called it "finely tuned if formulaic," and praised Platas's pacing, wit, and "verve." Victor Cruz-Lugo, writing in the Hispanic magazine, had a positive overall view of the book, deeming it a "lighthearted, gossipy romp" that adds satire to its Cinderella tale.