Juanita Castro talks about her new memoir

MIAMI (WSVN) -- Fidel Castro's sister is telling the untold story about her infamous family in a book she believes will be a real page-turner.

"I am the telling the truth. I'm not inventing things and creating a novela," said Juanita Castro. Her life as the counter-revolutionary sister of infamous Cuban Dictators Fidel and Raul Castro reads like a telenovela, complete with espionage, intrigue, murder and betrayal. "They didn't have an idea," she said.

Her just-released memoir, Mis Hermanos Fidel y Raul, is already a best seller. "It's really hard to keep it in stock," said a book store employee.

The book, in the works for more than a decade, reveals how Juanita, the fifth of seven Castro siblings, worked with the CIA against her brother's regime to smuggle weapons into Cuba and fellow counter-revolutionaries out. "I worked with them because it was the only country in the world that was capable to help us," she revealed.

All the while knowing if big brother Fidel found out, nothing could save her. "If they'd known what I was doing with the CIA, I am sure something would happen to me," Castro said.

After half a century of guarding these family secrets, Castro reveals how her own family was torn apart by the revolution her brothers masterminded and how their mother, Lina, worked in the shadows to save the lives of countless dissidents. "She helped a lot of people," said Castro.

In fact, when her mother died in 1963, her brother Raul urged her to leave Cuba. It would be the last conversation, she said, she would have with any of her siblings. Within days she'd be denouncing the dictatorship from Mexico.

Because of her infamous last name and the hatred of many here in exile, Juanita Castro has spent the last 40 years trying to stay out of the public eye. She now says she is marveled by the success of the book she was literally born to write. Since its release last week, the book has become an international hit and is already in its second edition.

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