What a Latinx-filled month it is for new book releases! Here are a few of the books we’re excited to add to our TBR pile. Make sure to pick them up from your local bookstore or at the library—enjoy!
Beyond All Reasonable Doubt, Jesus Is Alive! by Melissa Lozada-Oliva | SHORT STORIES
A beheaded body interrupts a quinceañera. An obsession with her father’s bizarre video game shifts a lonely girl’s reality. A sentient tail sprouts from a hospital worker’s backside, throwing her romantic life into peril. And in the novella “Community Hole,” a recently cancelled musician flees New York and finds herself in a haunted punk house in Boston.
This collection, at once playful, grisly, and tender, presents a tapestry of women ailing for something to believe in – even if it hurts them. Using body horror, fabulism, and humor, Melissa Lozada-Oliva mines the pain and uncanniness of the modern world. Reveling in the fine line between disgust and desire, Beyond All Reasonable Doubt, Jesus is Alive! is for the sinner in us all.
Bold, Brilliant, and Latine: Meet 52 Latine and Hispanic Heroes from Past and Present by Alyssa Reynoso-Morris | Illustrated by Sol Cotti | CHILDREN’S
Young Latine and Hispanic children can see themselves reflected in 52 amazing heroes from the past and present, whom everyone can look up to. Featuring incredible icons like:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - Politician, the youngest woman ever to be elected to Congress
Lionel Messi - Superstar soccer player
Sonia Sotomayor - US Supreme Court Justice
Ellen Ochoa - First Latina astronaut in space
Kids will be inspired by these stories and others, from sporting legends to fashion icons, political leaders to fearless changemakers, as well as renowned writers, musicians, artists, scientists, and more. These heroes' lives are vividly recounted by queer award-winning Dominican and Puerto Rican storyteller Alyssa Reynoso-Morris and brought to life by Argentinian illustrator Sol Cotti.
Silenced Voices: Reclaiming Memories from the Guatemalan Genocide by Pablo Leon | Illustrated by Pablo Leon | GRAPHIC NOVEL
Langley Park, Maryland, 2013
Brothers Jose and Charlie know very little about their mother’s life in Guatemala, until Jose grows curious about the ongoing genocide trial of Efrain Rios Montt. At first his mother, Clara, shuts his questions down. But as the trial progresses, she begins to open up to her sons about a time in her life that she’s left buried for years.
Peten, Guatemala, 1982
Sisters Clara and Elena hear about the armed conflict every day, but the violence somehow seems far away from their small village. But the day the fight comes to their doorstep, the sisters are separated and are forced to flee through the mountains, leaving them to wonder…Have their paths diverged forever?
a chronology of blood by Teo Shannon | POETRY
A stunning debut collection by a gifted poet, a chronology of blood explores major traumas in the author’s life. Autobiographical in nature, the book is broken into three sections that each deal with a trauma the author has endured, and it explores a range of themes including gun violence, conversion therapy, misuse of drugs, addiction, and domestic violence. But balancing the anger, harm, and pain is hope: above all Shannon is a survivor, learning to incorporate these experiences into a life filled with healing and lived on his own terms.
Waiting for Godínez by Daniel A. Olivas | ADULT FICTION
Olivas’s extraordinary reimagining of a classic play lays bare the destructive and brutalizing effects of the United States’ anti-immigration policy on undocumented immigrants and their families. In Waiting for Godínez, the forever-waiting characters of Estragon and Vladimir are embodied in Jesús and Isabel, two Mexican friends living in the States. Each night Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents kidnap Jesús and throw him into a cage intending to deport him. But the agents forget to lock the cage, so Jesús escapes and makes his way back to Isabel as they wait for the mysterious Godínez in a city park. At one point Isabel looks upon her exhausted friend and laments, “What harm have you done to them? You are as much of this country as you are of México. But you are not home in either place. Ni de aquí, ni de allá.”
Waiting for Godínez humanizes the plight undocumented people face in a country that both needs and disdains them. Through a darkly comic absurdist lens, it implores us to reconsider this country’s policies in light of the fact that we are all human and deserve respect and dignity as we each try to make our way in a confusing and often indifferent world.
Mexico's Day of the Dead: A Celebration of Life Through Stories and Photos by Luisa Navarro | Photographed by Christine Chitnis | NONFICTION
Whether you are new to the holiday and celebrating for the first time, looking to process a recent loss, or just interested in this authentic Mexican cultural tradition, Mexico's Day of the Dead paints a vibrant picture of one of the country's most storied and sacred holidays.
With photographer Christine Chitnis by her side, author Luisa Navarro documents the most breathtaking displays, as well as the artisans and people who keep the traditions alive. She delves into the origins of the holiday, its rich iconography, and modern-day customs. Thoughtful essays on the evolution of Día de Muertos are coupled with practical guides for celebrating it yourself, as Luisa shares her tips for cultivating your own Day of the Dead traditions. Turn to Mexico's Day of the Dead for approachable DIY projects. Build your own altar. Make your own sugar skulls. Create papel picado and bake your own delicious pan de muerto at home.
This landmark book brings Day of the Dead to life with transportive photography, high-end finishes, and eye-catching stained edges.
All That Dies in April by Mariana Travacio | Translated by Samantha Schnee & Will Morningstar | ADULT FICTION
Lina has dreamt for years of leaving her tiny village in the drought-stricken region. Her son left long ago to find work and a better fortune. Relicario, her husband, is content to stay put in the land of his ancestors, tending to their graves. Ignoring Relicario's pleas, a desperate Lina decides to abandon their home in search of her son, work, and water. She starts her journey on foot, and Relicario eventually follows behind, bringing a donkey and a sack with his ancestors' bones. Both witness unspeakable violence, cruelty, and folly, but the hope of reuniting their family keeps them alive.
Poetically charged, restrained, and delicately condensed, this is a suspenseful ancestral tale rooted in a long Latin American history of rural displacement and perpetual inequality.
Calladita No More: My Latina Journey and the Lessons that Shaped Me by Hady Mendez | NONFCITION
"Calladita No More" is a powerful collection of stories about the lived experiences of a Latina who dared to dream big-only to find that the world wasn't built for her ambitions. Through the lens of familiar Latinx cultural sayings, or refranes, Hady Méndez shares the lessons she learned navigating identity, leadership, and belonging in a world fueled by bias, discrimination, racism, and sexism.
Each chapter holds a different refrán and lesson, blending personal storytelling with cultural reflection to spotlight hard-earned insights on empowerment, resilience, and reclaiming one's voice. This is not a step-by-step guide. It is a deeply personal narrative-an offering of wisdom and encouragement to Latinas and Women of Color who are carving their own paths through systems that were never designed with them in mind.
Hady's journey is a testament to what is possible when one learns to champion themselves, celebrate their successes, foster community, and prioritize self-care. Written with joy, clarity, and mucho orgullo, the book invites readers to reflect on the lessons they've learned and the insights they've gained.
Chloe Vega and the Agents of Magic by Leslie Adame | MIDDLE GRADE
Twelve-year-old Chloe Vega’s biggest fear is that her undocumented parents will be detained by immigration. That is, until she learns that her parents are actually part of a secret magical society…and that the suspicious looking police officers who have been hanging around their block are henchmen for an evil sorcerer determined to settle a decades-old score.
Just when Chloe discovers that she has powers, too, her parents are kidnapped. In order to rescue them, she’ll need to harness her abilities at an elite academy, run by the very agency who exiled her parents from the magical world.
Finding herself in the center of a magical war that might destroy everything she has ever known, Chloe can’t shake the feeling that the Agents of Magic are hiding secrets. With her parents’ lives hanging in the balance, she must uncover who is truly on her side and fast to save her family—and the world itself.
The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar by Sonora Reyes | YOUNG ADULT
Seventeen-year-old Cesar Flores is finally ready to win back his ex-boyfriend. Since breaking up with Jamal in a last-ditch effort to stay in the closet, he’s come out to Mami, his sister, Yami, and their friends, taken his meds faithfully, and gotten his therapist’s blessing to reunite with Jamal.
Everything would be perfect if it weren’t for The Thoughts—the ones that won’t let all his Catholic guilt and internalizations stay buried where he wants them. The louder they become, the more Cesar is once again convinced that he doesn't deserve someone like Jamal—or anyone really.
Cesar can hide a fair amount of shame behind jokes and his “gifted” reputation, but when a manic episode makes his inner turmoil impossible to hide, he’s faced with a stark choice: burn every bridge he has left or, worse—ask for help. But is the mortifying vulnerability of being loved by the people he’s hurt the most a risk he’s willing to take?
Inside the Cartel: How an Undercover FBI Agent Smuggled Cocaine, Laundered Cash, and Dismantled a Colombian Narco-Empire by Martin Suarez & Ian Frisch | NONFICTION
Martin Suarez, a legend within the FBI who specialized in Colombian drug cartels, holds the record for the longest time spent continuously undercover. As his alter ego Manny, Martin followed the unspoken rules of the cartels: He knew the right lingo to use, the right whiskey to drink, the right watch to wear, the wrong questions to ask. He smuggled over $1 billion worth of cocaine into the United States for the Medellín Cartel and, as his cover deepened, he graduated to become a high-level money launderer for the North Coast Cartel. He helped wash tens of millions of dollars worth of drug money, ensnaring himself in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse while simultaneously exposing the Black Market Peso Exchange, the most insidious money laundering apparatus in the world that involved billionaire bankers, blue-chip American corporations, and even the President of Colombia himself.
Martin was raised by a father who served in the military and valorized the nobility of the FBI, and Martin stopped at nothing to allow his father to live vicariously through his son. He wanted nothing more than to make his father proud—and to be a good husband to his wife, and a loving father to his two young sons. He became a man caught between two worlds—that of an undercover agent who wanted to rid the world of its evils, but also that of a family man who was trying not to lose himself in this dark, brutal underworld that captivated the globe during the War on Drugs.
And yet his worlds begin to collide as danger creeps dangerously close to his doorstep when his cover is blown and a cartel-hired sicario comes hunting for him.
The Other Barrio: New and Selected Stories by Alejandro Murguía | SHORT STORIES
In the title story, a once-elegant hotel--now a rundown apartment building for mostly single men and a few desperate families--burns to the ground, killing seven people.
City building inspector Roberto Morales had recently reviewed it and knows there was nothing wrong with the wiring, even before he's hustled off to a "meeting" with a local mafioso.
As he pounds the pavement of San Francisco's grimy Mission District, looking for clues to the fire, he realizes the lengths to which developers will go to make another million--even as far as sending seven innocent souls to "the other barrio.
San Francisco Poet Laureate Emeritus Alejandro Murguía imbues his mostly brown, working-class characters with the grit necessary to face every day in this collection of short fiction.
How to Say Goodbye in Cuban by Daniel Miyares | MIDDLE GRADE
Carlos, who lives in a small town in the Cuban countryside, loves to play baseball with his best friend, Alvaro, and to shoot home-made slingshots with his abuelo.
One day, a miracle happens: Carlos' father, his papi, wins the lottery! He uses the money to launch his own furniture business and to move the family to a big house in the city.
Carlos hates having to move -- hates leaving Abuelo and Alvaro behind -- and hates being called country kid at his new school. But the pains of moving and middle school turn out to be the least of his problems.
When rebel leader Fidel Castro overthrows the existing Cuban president, the entire country is thrust into revolution. Then, suddenly, Papi disappears. Carlos' mother tells him that Papi has gone to America, and that they will soon join him. But Carlos really doesn't want to leave Cuba, the only home he's ever known. Besides, how will they get to America when Castro's soldiers are policing their every move? Will Carlos ever see his father again?
