Belinda Vasquez Garcia Wins 2013 Latino Books into Movies Award for The Witch Narratives Reincarnation (Land of Enchantment #1)

LThe Witch Narratives Reincarnation (Land of Enchantment Book 1) won First Place for Horror. The novel is a touching, magical tale of friendship, love, betrayal, and toxic family ties. The book will be distributed by the 2013 Latino Books Into Movies Awards committee to ten directors and producers.

"I am honored to have received this award at the Latino Author Summit recently held in the Los Angeles area," Garcia says.

The 2013 Latino Books Into Movies Awards is the third award The Witch Narratives Reincarnation has won. The novel was, also, a 2013 Best Fantasy International Latino Book Awards winner and a 2012 Best Fantasy New Mexico / Arizona Book Awards winner.

The Santa Fe New Mexican said of the novel: "The Witch Narratives Reincarnation breathes life into the people of Madrid, New Mexico, in the days before the coal mine shut down, when witches were a dark force to be feared by even the most devout Catholic. You can't stop wondering what's going to happen next."

In the last nine months, Garcia has won six national and international book awards for three different books. Her second novel in the Land of Enchantment series, Ghosts of the Black Rose, recently was named a 2013 Best Fantasy finalist for the New Mexico / Arizona Book Awards. Her novel, Return of the Bones (Inspired by a True Story), was named both a 2013 Best Historical Fiction and a 2013 Best Multi-Cultural Fiction finalist for the New Mexico / Arizona Book Awards.

"The Witch Narratives Reincarnation would make a great movie," Garcia states. "The magic is original and based on research. The series is brewed with the unique, little-known world of Hispanic and Native American witchcraft. The Spanish Inquisition was in New Mexico for centuries, hunting witches. There are court cases in Santa Fe of witch trials and witnesses to their magic. Southwestern witches flash into fireballs! A contention in the books is a piedra imán, a shape-shifting, magnetic rock known since Roman Times. The characters lust after the piedra imán for different reasons-to be beautiful, thin, powerful, or to live forever."

Garcia's inspiration for The Land of Enchantment Series came when she ran across an old photo of three real witches, and the image of the youngest witch left an indelible mark on her. "The haunTed Eyes of the young girl squeezed between her mother and aunt intrigued me. I thought about a girl being forced to follow in her mother's magical footsteps and join the family business, so to speak," Garcia says.

Salia, a third-generation witch and half-breed living as an outcast, befriends Marcelina, a Catholic haunted by a legendary centuries-old witch, La Llorona. Salia and Marcelina both have very traumatizing childhoods and need each other. They grow from troubled 11 year-olds to even more troubled women in their 20′s. While Marcelina is torn between Catholicism and witchcraft allure, Salia has no desire to join the Sisterhood of the Black Rose, the covens created by La Llorona. Salia would rather be an opera singer, although she cannot sing. But, if Salia can steal her grandmother's piedra imán, she can become the greatest opera singer, defeat her powerful mother, and escape her family's curse, which prevents her from leaving Madrid.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Belinda Vasquez Garcia is a critically acclaimed, bestselling author. She was born in the Los Angeles area. After her father abandoned the family when she was 11 and losing her mother at the age of 16, Garcia managed to put herself through school, earning a bachelor's degree in Applied Mathematics. She worked as a software engineer and web developer. Her family story is partially told in The Bigamist, A Memoir of My Father and The Womanizer, Another Memoir of My Father.

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