Book Review: Kiss Me, Mi Amor by Alana Quintana Albertson

Alana Quintana Albertson is known for having many talents. When she’s not rescuing dogs from high-kill shelters, through a rescue she founded, and being an alumna of prestigious universities, she’s writing romance and mystery books. On July 4, 2023, she graced her readers with a second book in the Love & Tacos series, Kiss Me, Mi Amor, published by Berkley Romance.

Kiss Me, Mi Amor follows the middle Montez brother, Enrique, as he attempts to partner with Carolina Flores, a female farm owner who refuses to give the heir of the Taco King empire the time of day. However, when the holidays arrive, she lies to her overbearing family that he is her boyfriend. On these pretend dates, Carolina begins to figure out that she doesn’t have to be the traditional daughter and woman that her parents, especially her father, want her to be. The feelings between Enrique and Carolina grow more intense and they begin to wonder what their fake dates look like for the future as the holidays, and maybe their growing romance, start coming to an end.

Carolina Flores is the owner of the Flores Family Farm and the daughter of farm workers. Although she’s the owner on paper, her father is the one who calls the shots in business and in family. In their traditional Mexican home, her father has rules about women that he implements onto his ten daughters—and Carolina is sick of it. She refuses to marry to avoid moving from one male-dominated household to the next. Carolina loves her independence and wishes to keep it that way. However, when she meets Enrique, she begins to push back against her father’s rules and her outlook on love. When her dad falls ill, she lies about Enrique being her boyfriend and begins to rebel. While enjoying her time with Enrique and opening up to new experiences, it causes major arguments with her parents. She does some soul-searching and finds solace in reconnecting with an aunt who was shunned for defying her father’s rules as well. Carolina has to make major decisions that will better suit her, her family, and Enrique.

Enrique Montez is the middle child of the Taco King empire. He wants to reassess the chain’s agricultural relationships and partner with ethical farms, and Carolina is exactly who he’s looking for. When he drives up to Santa Maria to meet her, he finds out that her sister set up the meeting without Carolina’s knowledge. She refuses to partner with the chain but this doesn’t deter him from finding her captivating in brains and beauty. He offers to play Joseph in the upcoming Las Posadas and this sets their fake dating in motion as Carolina lies about him being her new beau. Enrique has strong, opposing opinions about Señor Flores’ outlook on women and family, so he plays along with her lie if it means she can break free. At first, he never pictured himself settling down but after spending time with her, he begins to reconsider. Things come to a head when Carolina decides that she needs to figure out who she is outside of him and her father. Months go by with no contact until they reunite once more.

“Alana Quintana Albertson shows her flawless ease in “Kiss Me, Mi Amor” of creating a fake-dating, holiday romance . . . while highlighting important conversations such as agriculture, farm worker’s rights, and the patriarchal culture within a traditional Mexican family. ”

While Enrique and Carolina come from different backgrounds, they open each other up to new experiences. He showers her with a shopping spree, which includes new Louboutins, while she tells him what celebrating Nochebuena entails. Neither are afraid to have hard-hitting conversations with the other. Carolina has him work her field and he realizes that it’s going to take more than just words to evoke change with the unethical farms that the chain partners with. Enrique helps her realize that she’s allowed to have fun and let loose with their mini trip to Disneyland and a day trip to Carmel-by-the-Sea. The pair help the other see what their life can hold if they push against the odds and open their minds to change. Through these experiences, their growing feelings for each other blur the line between fake dating and real dating. As Alana effortlessly puts it, “But they shared one language that needed no translating. Amor.”

Alana Quintana Albertson shows her flawless ease in Kiss Me, Mi Amor of creating a fake-dating, holiday romance (where they have to share one bed!) while highlighting important conversations such as agriculture, farm worker’s rights, and the patriarchal culture within a traditional Mexican family. While the Love & Tacos series celebrates many aspects of Mexican culture, she doesn’t shy away from speaking on prominent issues that the community faces.

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Alana Quintana Albertson has written thirty romance novels, rescued five hundred death-row shelter dogs, and danced one thousand rumbas. She lives in sunny San Diego with her husband, two sons, and too many pets. Most days, she can be found writing her next heart book in a beachfront café while sipping an oat-milk Mexican mocha or gardening with her children in their backyard orchard and snacking on a juicy blood orange.

Melissa Gonzalez (she/her) is a UCLA graduate with a major in American Literature & Culture and a minor in Chicana/o & Central American Studies. She loves boba, horror movies, and reading. You can spot her in the fiction, horror/mystery/thriller, and young adult sections of bookstores. Though she is short, she feels as tall as her TBR pile. You can find Melissa on her book Instagram: @floralchapters

November 2023 Latinx Releases

On Sale November 7

Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey by Edel Rodriguez | ADULT NONFICTION

Hailed for his iconic art on the cover of Time and on jumbotrons around the world, Edel Rodriguez is among the most prominent political artists of our age. Now for the first time, he draws his own life, revisiting his childhood in Cuba and his family’s passage on the infamous Mariel boatlift.

When Edel was nine, Fidel Castro announced his surprising decision to let 125,000 traitors of the revolution, or “worms,” leave the country. The faltering economy and Edel’s family’s vocal discomfort with government surveillance had made their daily lives on a farm outside Havana precarious, and they secretly planned to leave. But before that happened, a dozen soldiers confiscated their home and property and imprisoned them in a detention center near the port of Mariel, where they were held with dissidents and criminals before being marched to a flotilla that miraculously deposited them, overnight, in Florida.

Through vivid, stirring art, Worm tells a story of a boyhood in the midst of the Cold War, a family’s displacement in exile, and their tenacious longing for those they left behind. It also recounts the coming-of-age of an artist and activist, who, witnessing American’s turn from democracy to extremism, struggles to differentiate his adoptive country from the dictatorship he fled. Confronting questions of patriotism and the liminal nature of belonging, Edel Rodriguez ultimately celebrates the immigrants, maligned and overlooked, who guard and invigorate American freedom.

Cross-Stitch by Jazmina Barrera | Translated by Christina Macsweeney | ADULT FICTION

It was meant to be the trip of a lifetime. Mila, Citlali, and Dalia, childhood friends now college aged, leave Mexico City for the England of The Clash and the Paris of Courbet. They anticipate the cafés and crushes, but not the early signs that they are each steadily, inevitably changing.

That feels like forever ago. Mila, now a writer and a new mother, has just published a book on needlecraft—an art form so long dismissed as “women’s work.” But after learning Citlali has drowned, Mila begins to sift through her old scrapbooks, reflecting on their shared youth for the first time as a new wife and mother. What has come of all the nights the three friends spent embroidering together in silence? Did she miss the signs that Citlali needed help?

Call You When I Land: A Memoir by Nikki Vargas | ADULT NONFICTION

At twenty-six years old, life looked a certain way for Nikki Vargas. She’d settled in New York City ready to join the ranks of the Carrie Bradshaws of the world, had landed in a promising advertising career, and was newly engaged to her college sweetheart. But between corporate happy hours and wedding dress fittings, she couldn’t shake a deep underlying sense of imposter syndrome, a voice telling her that she was rocketing towards a future that didn’t look like her. And so, she bought a plane ticket: first to Cartagena. Then to Panama. Then to Iguazú.

What begins with one freelance travel writing assignment escalates into a whirlwind, globe-spanning journey that would transform Nikki’s life. Taking her from the street food stalls of Vietnam to the cascading waterfalls of Argentina, Nikki uncovers shocking truths about her family, comes face to face with a new love interest – or two – and ultimately turns a no-name blog into the internationally celebrated venture of Unearth Women, the first major female-focused travel publication.

Told in transporting detail and candid reflections, Call You When I Land takes the familiar story of a woman going abroad to find herself and turns it on its head, as the act of traveling becomes, for Nikki, an exhilarating career path – and ultimately a tool to champion women’s voices across the world.

I Hop / Yo Salto by Joe Cepeda | PICTURE BOOK

I hop. / Yo salto.
I see cheese. / Veo queso.
I pay. / Pago.

A boy hops around town on his pogo stick, running errands to have a picnic with his grandma! This Theodor Geisel Honor book is now available in a bilingual board book edition.

This sweet story about having fun with family is perfect for the toddler that is always moving and bouncing. Very simple, easy-to-read text appears in English and Spanish, side by side, and accompanies Joe Cepeda’s bold, energetic artwork. The toddler-friendly story introduces the youngest readers to basic verbs and foods.

Lolo and Birdie: I'm Not Sleepy! / ¡No Tengo Sueño! by Angela Dominguez | PICTURE BOOK

Birdie is ready to go to bed, but when he approaches Lolo to say goodnight, Lolo isn't tired! Birdie tries everything to help Lolo get ready for bed: reading, snacks, brushing teeth, but Lolo has way too much to do.

This delightful bilingual picture book is perfect for young readers who, like most, are reluctant for the day to end.

The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez | ADULT FICTION

Elegy plus comedy is the only way to express how we live in the world today, says a character in Sigrid Nunez’s ninth novel. The Vulnerables offers a meditation on our contemporary era, as a solitary female narrator asks what it means to be alive at this complex moment in history and considers how our present reality affects the way a person looks back on her past.

Humor, to be sure, is a priceless refuge. Equally vital is connection with others, who here include an adrift member of Gen Z and a spirited parrot named Eureka. The Vulnerables reveals what happens when strangers are willing to open their hearts to each other and how far even small acts of caring can go to ease another’s distress. A search for understanding about some of the most critical matters of our time, Nunez’s new novel is also an inquiry into the nature and purpose of writing itself.

Barbacoa, Bomba, and Betrayal by Raquel V. Reyes | ADULT FICTION

A surprise trip to Miriam's parents in Punta Cana, which should be filled with arroz con pollo and breezy days under the tamarind tree, quickly becomes a hunt for a possible property saboteur. But before Miriam can begin to uncover the person damaging the vacation rentals her parents manage, she’s called away to Puerto Rico to film a Three Kings Day special. She's welcomed to the blue ballast-stone streets of Old San Juan by crime scene tape, and things only get worse from there.

An anonymous personal gift on Miriam's doorstep on New Year's Eve screams stalker, and the 400-year-old guesthouse creaks and moans like there is something trapped in its walls. Luckily, her BFF, Alma, and their mutual friend Jorge are in town to keep her distracted between filming cultural segments for the network. But private chef tables and spa days come to an abrupt halt when Jorge's telenovela heartthrob novio goes missing. And there is something worrisome about Alma's too-perfect boyfriend—specifically, his duffle bag full of cash.

Will demon masks, African drumbeats, and dark alleys lead to Miriam's demise? Or will the mysterious events come together like the delicious layers of a pastelón?

American Shield: The Immigrant Sergeant Who Defended Democracy by Aquilino Gonell, Susan Shapiro | Foreword by Jamie Raskin | ADULT NONFICTION

Aquilino Gonell came to the United States from the Dominican Republic as a young boy. Although he spoke no English, he dedicated himself to his adopted land, striving for the American dream. Determined to be a success story, he joined the army to pay for college. He saw action in Iraq and returned home with PTSD. Believing in the promise of our government, he focused on healing himself and supporting his family. His hard work paid off when he landed a coveted position with the United States Capitol Police and rose to the rank of sergeant.

January 6, 2021, changed everything. When insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, Gonell bravely faced down the mob attempting to thwart the peaceful transfer of power. The brutal injuries he sustained that day would end his career in law enforcement. But when some of the very people he put his life on the line to protect downplayed or denied the truth of that day, he chose to speak out against the injustice done to him and the country. Chronicling what it means to live a life of conviction, one that adheres to the best ideas of our democracy, American Shield is a bold testament to the power of truth, justice, and accountability from a highly decorated officer and immigrant who exemplifies the greatest aspirations of a grateful nation.

Pedro and Marques Take Stock: A Picaresque Novel by José Falero| Translated by Julia Sanches | ADULT FICTION

In the favelas of Porto Alegre, Brazil, marijuana is hard to come by. Supermarket stock clerks Pedro and Marques spend their days unloading trucks, restocking shelves, and dreaming of a better life, of breaking the cycle of poverty that has afflicted their families and their community. Well-acquainted with the drug dealers in their neighborhood and seeing an opportunity to earn a little extra cash, they decide to start a weed-dealing operation.

The economic hierarchies of Porto Alegre are turned upside down as, almost accidentally, the two men build a thriving enterprise and get rich, quickly. Distribution grows from dime bags to kilos, and Pedro and Marques begin to plan for a future where low-wage work will never again be a necessity for them and their families. All too soon however, their operation starts attracting outsider attention, and cracks in their carefully crafted and seemingly untouchable world begin to show, culminating in one final, lethal showdown.

A witty, voice-driven, and electrifying portrait of poverty and a canny examination of the ethics of drug dealing and low-wage labor in the underbelly of Brazil, Pedro and Marques Take Stock is a contemporary picaresque novel of class and crime.

On Sale November 14

Best Amigas by Patricia Santos Marcantonio | MIDDLE GRADE

Juana Méndez and Diane Conrad are going to save each other's lives. Not with super heroics, but with a friendship that gets them through everything. And those girls are always up to something—eating goat burritos on July 4th, sneaking up on a garage roof to watch a couple kiss and wonder about romance, and surviving the meanest kid in school. Then another summer arrives, and ends in heartbreak and hope for the best amigas.

Ready Player Juan: Latinx Masculinities and Stereotypes in Video Games by Carlos Gabriel Kelly González | ADULT NONFICTION

Written for all gaming enthusiasts, this book fuses Latinx studies and video game studies to document how Latinx masculinities are portrayed in high-budget action-adventure video games, inviting Latinxs and others to insert their experiences into games made by an industry that fails to see them.

The book employs an intersectional approach through performance theory, border studies, and lived experience to analyze the designed identity “Player Juan.” Player Juan manifests in video game representations through a discourse of criminality that sets expectations of who and what Latinxs can be and do. Developing an original approach to video game experiences, the author theorizes video games as border crossings, and defines a new concept—digital mestizaje—that pushes players, readers, and scholars to deploy a Latinx way of seeing and that calls on researchers to consider a digital object’s constructive as well as destructive qualities.

One Impossible Step: Selected Poems by Orides Fontela | Translated by Chris Daniels | POETRY

In her lifetime, Orides Fontela resisted all labels, all attempts to situate her work in a particular movement, school, tendency, or tradition. Here, in her first ever English-language collection, Fontela’s poetry continues to defy easy categorization. In these concise, meditative poems, Fontela’s bird and flower, water and stone, blood and star can be read as symbols, indicating a possible tendency toward mysticism. Including an illuminating statement of poetics and excerpts from her often acerbic interviews, One Impossible Step introduces English-language audiences to an iconoclast who remains one across languages and decades.

The Dialectic Is in the Sea: The Black Radical Thought of Beatriz Nascimento by Beatriz Nascimento | Edited and Translated by Christen A. Smith, Bethânia N F Gomes, Archie Davies | ADULT NONFICTION

Beatriz Nascimento (1942–1995) was a poet, historian, artist, and political leader in Brazil’s Black movement, an innovative and creative thinker whose work offers a radical reimagining of gender, space, politics, and spirituality around the Atlantic and across the Black diaspora. Her powerful voice still resonates today, reflecting a deep commitment to political organizing, revisionist historiography, and the lived experience of Black women. The Dialectic Is in the Sea is the first English-language collection of writings by this vitally important figure in the global tradition of Black radical thought.

The Dialectic Is in the Sea traces the development of Nascimento’s thought across the decades of her activism and writing, covering topics such as the Black woman, race and Brazilian society, Black freedom, and Black aesthetics and spirituality. Incisive introductory and analytical essays provide key insights into the political and historical context of Nascimento’s work. This engaging collection includes an essay by Bethânia Gomes, Nascimento’s only daughter, who shares illuminating and uniquely personal insights into her mother’s life and career.

Lotería: Poems by Esteban Rodriguez | POETRY

A traditional game of chance popular in Mexico and in Mexican American culture, Lotería is poetically rendered in Esteban Rodríguez’s eighth collection, with each poem revolving around one of the fifty-four cards. Using the image presented as a catalyst for exploration and self-reflection, Rodríguez unveils the familial journey between two countries and cultures through both a surreal and narrative lens. Here, a mother unearths a severed hand in the desert. A father discovers his heart among a heap of discarded items. And at one point, the speaker—toggling between his role as witness and son—finds himself in a canoe on a river contemplating the meaning behind an authentic experience. Lyrical, insightful, and honestly engaging, Lotería sheds light on a world that doesn’t so easily reveal itself, adding to Rodríguez’s prolific and important oeuvre.

On Sale November 21

Central American Migrations in the Twenty-First Century | Edited by Mauricio Espinoza, Miroslava Arely Rosales Vásquez, Ignacio Sarmiento | ADULT NONFICTION

The reality of Central American migrations is broad, diverse, multidirectional, and uncertain. It also offers hope, resistance, affection, solidarity, and a sense of community for a region that has one of the highest rates of human displacement in the world.

Central American Migrations in the Twenty-First Century tackles head-on the way Central America has been portrayed as a region profoundly marked by the migration of its people. Through an intersectional approach, this volume demonstrates how the migration experience is complex and affected by gender, age, language, ethnicity, social class, migratory status, and other variables. Contributors carefully examine a broad range of topics, including forced migration, deportation and outsourcing, intraregional displacements, the role of social media, and the representations of human mobility in performance, film, and literature. The volume establishes a productive dialogue between humanities and social sciences scholars, and it paves the way for fruitful future discussions on the region’s complex migratory processes.

Leo Messi by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara | Illustrated by Florencia Gavilán | PICTURE BOOK

In this book from the highly acclaimed Little People, BIG DREAMS series, discover the incredible life of Leo Messi, one of the world's most skilled and celebrated soccer players.

This powerful book features stylish and quirky illustrations and extra facts at the back, including a biographical timeline with historical photos and a detailed profile of the footballer’s life.

Flesh and Spirit: Confessions of a Young Lord by Felipe Luciano | ADULT NONFICTION

Growing up fatherless and poor, Felipe Luciano didn’t yearn for wealth or dream of becoming a famous actor or athlete. He was tired of being poor and ached to be a man, to reach that point of sagacity, courage, and independence that would signal to the world that he was now a warrior, ready to fight the battle for truth and justice, to slay the dragon of evil, whatever that might be. In Flesh and Spirit, Luciano paints a vivid portrait of his life in New York City as a member of the city’s Latino community as well as his pivotal role in the Young Lords and The Last Poets.

Luciano’s memoir begins when as a teenage Brooklyn gang member he is convicted of man­slaughter. This pivotal moment changes the trajectory of his life. The American kid raised on Davy Crockett and Superman TV tales emerged from the womb of prison into a harsh, new monochromatic black/white world without the benefit of rose-colored glasses. It was a painful shattering of all his childhood beliefs and the realization that he was a poor Black Puerto Rican in white America clutching onto values that didn’t work. The only flotsam in this churning sea of ’60s social turmoil was college, poetry, revolutionary activity, and sometimes God. After getting an education, Luciano went on to become an acclaimed poet and political activist who advocates for the Latino population of New York City, for the kids growing up in the same circumstances he did.

Sparing no one―not the revolutionaries, the Revolution, nor the author himself―Flesh and Spirit is written with honesty and humility to help guide young people of color and other Americans through the labyrinths of ideology, organization, missteps, false paths, and phony societal promises.

Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games | Edited by Carmen Maria Machado, J. Robert Lennon | ADULT NONFICTION

From the earliest computers to the smartphones in our pockets, video games have been on our screens and part of our lives for over fifty years. Critical Hits celebrates this sophisticated medium and considers its lasting impact on our culture and ourselves.

This collection of stylish, passionate, and searching essays opens with an introduction by Carmen Maria Machado, who edited the anthology alongside J. Robert Lennon. In these pages, writer-gamers find solace from illness and grief, test ideas about language, bodies, power, race, and technology, and see their experiences and identities reflected in―or complicated by―the interactive virtual worlds they inhabit. Elissa Washuta immerses herself in The Last of Us during the first summer of the pandemic. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah describes his last goodbye to his father with the help of Disco Elysium. Jamil Jan Kochai remembers being an Afghan American teenager killing Afghan insurgents in Call of Duty. Also included are a comic by MariNaomi about her time as a video game producer; a deep dive into “portal fantasy” movies about video games by Charlie Jane Anders; and new work by Alexander Chee, Hanif Abdurraqib, Larissa Pham, and many more.

On Sale November 28

Cubanthropy: Two Futures That Happened While You Were Busy Thinking by Iván de la Nuez | Translated by Ellen Jones | ADULT NONFICTION

Essays on Cuba and the Cuban diaspora, on racism and Big Data, Guantánamo and Reggaeton, soccer and baseball, Obama and the Rolling Stones, Europe and Donald Trump—de la Nuez approaches his criticism with singularity of purpose. In Cubanthropy he does not set out to explain Cuba to the world, but rather to put the world into a Cuban context.

Andrea Beatriz Arango on Found Family in Something Like Home

Something Like Home opens to a dreaded ride. Laura Rodríguez Colón is in the backseat of her caseworker Janet’s car. They’re headed to Laura’s new (temporary) home. When they reach Titi Silvia’s apartment, Laura stares at a woman she doesn’t recognize nor has ever had a relationship with.

The sixth-grader doesn’t understand why she has a caseworker, or what a caseworker even does. Still, Laura floods Janet with questions. Below are a few:

How long will I be with my aunt?
What will happen to our trailer?
What will happen to the things I don’t pack?
When can I talk to Mom?
When can I talk to Dad?
What does kinship care mean?

Laura wonders if the 911 call she made is what caused her to be separated from her parents. She wonders if this is all her fault.

Another day, while on a walk, Laura finds a dog. The big brown puppy looks sickly, and so she carries the dog all the way to Titi Silvia’s house. She names him Sparrow.

Andrea Beatriz Arango, the Newbery Honor Award-winning author of Iveliz Explains It All, has brought forth a moving middle grade novel-in-verse about a young girl on a journey to understand what home means, and what makes up a family. Readers witness Laura navigate a strange reality—a new place to rest her head at night, a new school, and a budding new friendship—all without her parents.

After taking in Sparrow, Laura also finds a newfound purpose. She believes that if she trains him to become a therapy dog, then perhaps she’ll be allowed to visit her mom and dad. Perhaps, then, she could move back in with them and their family would be made whole again.

But, of course, it is not that easy.

“I’m a firm believer in that community can look like a lot of different things,” Arango told Latinx in Publishing. “Family can look like a lot of different things.”

Something Like Home was inspired by the author’s time as a foster mom in both her native Puerto Rico and in Virginia, where she most recently lived. Arango said that a lot of children—even those who aren’t in foster care but come from big families—are asked to choose one family member over another, or to take sides in an argument.

“I think it’s really hard as a kid to feel like you have to choose, and you can’t have more than one thing,” Arango said. “I really wanted to explore that in this particular scenario, in a non-traditional home situation, or just in general that idea that you can have more than one home, and you can have more than one family. And loving one of them does not cancel out the other. You don’t have to pledge your loyalty to only one person, or one home.”

It’s something Laura struggles with at first.

“She feels that it’s a betrayal of her parents if she starts growing her bond with her aunt or that, by loving her aunt, she’s loving her parents less,” Arango said. “And that’s definitely not the case.”

Because Laura is 11, her voice feels a bit younger than what readers are used to in the middle grade genre. She struggles through feelings of guilt and a deep longing for her parents—through verse and in letters she writes to her parents. Arango impresses in her crafting of Laura’s letters. They contain hope, desperation, and optimism. They are heart-rendering.

“With Laura, you have someone who doubts herself all the time, and who thinks things are the way they are because she’s making bad choices. And that she doesn’t have the capacity to be in control of her own life and to make correct choices,” Arango said. “I think a lot of kids do feel that way. And part of the reason behind that is because we—as adults and caregivers and teachers—sometimes unintentionally reinforce that belief in kids over and over.”

The presence and memories associated with Laura’s parents looms over the entire book, heightening the stakes for a daughter in yearning. Readers will find themselves wishing they would write her back soon.

Arango covers several themes in her sophomore book with ample tenderness: identity, addiction, the nuances of kinship care, and even the self-blame children exercise when in pain. The author’s writing is both intimate and accessible, as readers are taking on an emotional rollercoaster with Laura as she both learns and unlearns different aspects of the very nature of family.

The author recalled having foster children as students in her classroom when she was a teacher, and the scarcity of what she described as nuanced foster care books. The majority of the books she found painted the parents as evil, and as social services as a rescuer of the child from a horrifying situation.

“Obviously that is the case for some children. We do have abusers in society who did terrible things to their kids,” Arango said. “But the majority of foster care cases in the U.S. are not abuse cases.”

“The author’s writing is both intimate and accessible, as readers are taking on an emotional rollercoaster with Laura as she both learns and unlearns different aspects of the very nature of family.”

Most of the cases, said Arango, are classified as neglect. Reasons that can lead to a child being removed from the home include a family’s financial or housing situation, or parents losing their jobs or having an addiction.

“I wanted to write a book that looked at it in a more nuanced way. Laura loves her parents. Her parents love her,” Arango said. “They’re not bad people. They—just like a lot of people in the U.S.—became addicted to a substance. . . That happens a lot.”

Of note in Something Like Home is Sparrow and how important his role is in Laura’s new life. Arango is a self-described “dog person,” and shared that one of her dogs was the inspiration for the fictional dog. The author said she’s interacted with therapy dogs in different scenarios and wanted to highlight them in part to raise more awareness about them for young readers. The author added that she also wanted her main character to have a project she could focus on.

“During the book, she (Laura) definitely is feeling very lost. And one of the things that makes her feel like she is doing something to help herself and her family is this training-Sparrow-kind-of-project,” Arango said. “It gives her something to work towards and it helps her not feel as helpless because she now has a plan to reunite with her family.”

At the core of Something Like Home is a lesson on found family. Arango said she hopes young readers come away with a greater awareness of foster families and kinship families.

“It’s guaranteed in most schools, there will be at least one kid per classroom who is either in foster care or kinship care, has been at some point, or has a relative who has,” the author said.

This is really common, she added.

“I wanted both for kids who are going through a situation similar to that, to feel understood and listened to and represented,” Arango said. “But also for all the kids who have never encountered it in their lives, to have a little bit more empathy moving forward in the future.”

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Andrea Beatriz Arango is the Newbery Honor Award-winning author of Iveliz Explains It All. She was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and is a former public school teacher with almost a decade of teaching experience. Andrea now writes the types of children’s books she wishes students had more access to. She balances her life in Virginia with trips home to see her family and eat lots of tostones de pana. When she’s not busy writing, you can find her enjoying nature in the nearest forest or body of water.

Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family and dog, Brooklyn.

Author Q & A: The Cursed Moon by Angela Cervantes

For Rafael Fuentes there appears to be no break. The eleven-year-old has failing grades, which means he’s going to have to attend summer school. And he’s been fretting about his incarcerated mother, Nikki, who is set to be released early. Rafa hasn’t forgiven her for the instability and neglect she put him and his younger sister, Brianna, through. He’s refused every invitation to visit her in the women’s prison, and he’s ignored every one of her letters.

But there’s one thing that always lifts Rafa’s spirits, and that’s telling scary stories. Ever since he and Brianna were placed with their grandparents, he’s become known by other kids as the ghost storyteller. He and his sister even host scary story nights on their porch in the summer months.

One afternoon, Rafa and Brianna come across their eccentric neighbor, Ms. Martin, who warns them against telling any scary stories under the blood moon. “I know all about your scary story nights,” she tells them.

Later that night, Rafa wants to take his mind off his mother’s return from prison and ends up meeting his friend, Jayden. In Jayden’s treehouse—and under the blood moon—Rafa ends up weaving a scary story about a ghost called The Caretaker.

Almost immediately after, strange things start happening around Rafa. Has his story come true, and is The Caretaker real? With the help of friends and a magical jaguar, Rafa embarks on a quest to fight an evil spirit threatening to harm children.

Out now from Scholastic Press, The Cursed Moon by children’s author Angela Cervantes is a ghost story filled with spooky moments and plenty of heart. Cervantes has woven a story that draws you completely in as Rafa digs for answers about an apparent curse in town. At the core of this book is an important message about the power of words, and of one’s ability to find a happy ending. There is always hope.

On behalf of Latinx in Publishing, I spoke with Cervantes about writing this middle grade horror story, her main character’s internal struggle, and more.

“At the core of this book is an important message about the power of words, and of one’s ability to find a happy ending. There is always hope.”

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Amaris Castillo (AC): Congratulations on The Cursed Moon! What inspired this story?

Angela Cervantes (AC): It’s so funny that we’re talking today because I was just putting up Halloween decorations in front of my house. One of my best friends from childhood is in town, and she was helping me. Her name is Elena Cordero. A couple years back we had dinner in San Antonio and she reminded me that I used to tell scary stories in the summertime to all my friends, and that she really loved it. She said she used to come back for more. It sort of sparked this interest in me again, like Oh, yeah, I forgot that about myself. I used to love to scare my friends. I loved it when they were so afraid, they didn’t want to walk home alone. They would call their mom or dad and be like, “Can you come pick me up?” Or they would go in a pack and walk home together. I loved it when they would come back the next day and be like, “I have to know. What happens to the jaguar? What happens to the kid?”

I had forgotten that part of myself—that I used to love to tell scary stories. Right after COVID when I started resuming school visits again, I would ask the students: “What kind of book would you like to read next?” And they would all say “Scary story!” And I would look over at the librarians and the teachers and they’d all be nodding their heads. Then they would tell me there’s just not enough good scary stories for the kids. They love them. They want them. And I said, “You know what? I’m going to try.”

The spark from my childhood best friend, Elena, reminding me that that’s who I used to be. . . and then the kids telling me themselves that they wanted scary stories made me say, “I want to try. And I’m just gonna give it my best shot.” And so that’s what inspired The Cursed Moon.

AC: Your main character, Rafa, is known for his ghost stories. And then one day, a neighbor warns him not to tell any scary stories under the blood moon. He dismisses her advice and tells a story anyway—about a ghost known as The Caretaker. Without spoiling too much, can you share what it was like to craft the story of this figure and impact on the community?

AC: Rafael Fuentes and I are a lot alike; we both use writing and storytelling to deal with the world around us. I’ve always been that way since I was a kid. For Rafa, the scary stories are a coping mechanism for what is going on in his very real life with his mom, his family, friends, and his new school life. And he creates these scary stories to deal with all of that. That is very much me. I write because I’m expressing what’s inside me and what I’m going through, and because I remember being that 9-year-old Mexicana in school in Topeka, Kansas, and trying to find ways for my peers to see me as something else than this girl. But I’m also a scary storyteller. I also write. I’m a poet. . . wanting to have that identity as something special about me.

I think Rafa is very much like that. And I think a lot of kids are like that. As adults, we see children, but I don’t know if we really see children and what’s going on in their lives, and what they’re going through.

The Caretaker [character] should sound like a very positive thing; someone who is caring for you, but it’s kind of a “care-taker.” It’s kind of taking care, rather than a caregiver. I just played around with that name, and I liked it. When I was a child, I wrote a scary story about a little girl and her caretaker father in a park. He wouldn’t let her read books. And one day she finds a book. It’s a whole scary story that I now have on my website as a bonus scary story for the kids if they want to find it. But The Caretaker came from that story that I told and wrote as a child. I probably was like 10 or 11 years old—about the same age as Rafa. I fleshed it out for this book because I needed a villain, and I wanted it to be a really sinister ghost. I wanted it to be something that you would think would help children, would be nice, but really isn’t.

Without really purposely intending to do it, it’s kind of how Rafa sees his mom. Your mom is supposed to help you. I think he even states that in the book—“A mom is supposed to take care of you and protect you.” But she doesn’t in his life. Not yet, anyway. There’s hope. The Caretaker is the same way. It sounds like it should be someone who is caring for you and taking care of you. But in this case, he’s actually quite a sinister ghost that wants to hurt the children.

AC: The Cursed Moon, to me, challenges the notion that stories are harmless fun. What were you hoping to say about storytelling itself?

AC: Yes, I know that kind of opened up that whole theme. At one point, Rafa is being judged so harshly by the children around him, by the adults around him, because of his mom being sick and addicted. And I know exactly how that feels—to be judged even at such a young age, when you don’t even know yourself yet. It wasn’t like I set out to do it but, in my own little way, I wanted to remind people to let children write their own stories. Let Rafa narrate his own story. Only he can decide his ending. Only he can decide what path he’ll take. But if you’re going to judge him all the time and make him feel bad for the choices of his mom or his parents, you’re not really opening him up for a path away from that.

It was just my reminder—whether it was gentle or not, whether I failed or succeeded in that regard—that words have power. Stories have power. So many times, people made up stories about me because I was a Chicana growing up in Topeka, Kansas, and judged me for it. And you don’t have the right to tell my story. Only I have the right to tell my story. Only Rafa has the right to tell his story. And that’s the story that matters.

AC: Throughout the book Rafa has an internal struggle due to his feelings towards his mother, Nikki, who is about to be released from prison. He has resentment towards her for the unstable life she gave him and his sister, Brianna. What message were you hoping to send by highlighting this tension between a child and his parent?

AC: I was really just trying to give a voice to children in those same situations. That part of the story is very personal for me. My own family has faced similar issues, and I didn’t see books that gave a voice to those children who are living with the grandparents because somehow their parents have failed them. . . I didn’t see books that also dealt with the fact that there’s a parent that’s incarcerated, yet I’ve seen that in my own family and what it does to the children. And what it does to the whole family. Everyone struggles. Everyone is affected.

I just felt like I had to give a voice and a story for these children to have, to reflect on. Hopefully, also, children who are not in that situation [will] maybe understand their classmate a little better, maybe understand the kid down the street from them a little better, and maybe show a little bit more compassion—to not judge the child by the parents’ mistake. And hopefully give children who are in that situation a little bit of hope that I see you, I hear you, and here’s a story for you.

AC: One thing I loved about your book is how much Rafa and his sister, Brianna, love each other. Rafa feels he needs to protect her at all times. Can you talk about your decision to anchor your book in this close bond?

AC: That was very purposeful. Going back to my own, similar family issue, I’ve seen the older kids want to become the parent and take on super big responsibilities. They have now taken on the role to protect and raise their younger siblings. No choice of theirs. It’s just the situation they’ve been handed. I wanted that to be reflected, and I wanted to make sure I also showed some growth in Rafa and Brianna’s relationship. Without giving too much away, to show that Brianna can now see his point of view, where he’s coming from: that need to always protect. He shouldn’t have to take all that on himself. And him to say, “I want to be a kid again, and I want to have my mom back in my life, eventually”—when he feels it’s right for him and Brianna, so that he can be the kid and just enjoy life.

I myself grew up with very close siblings. My parents divorced when I was nine years old, and that made my four siblings and I very close. We felt like we had each other to fall back on, to protect each other when our parents were going through a rough divorce. . . I really used my own experiences with my big brothers for Rafa and my experience with Brianna —always loving words, always loving stories, always admiring everything her big brother did. That is my lived experience as well.

AC: What are you hoping readers take away from The Cursed Moon?

AC: One, I always hope my novels will just spark interest in reading in all children. I just want them to be lifelong readers. I want them to know that they can go to books for information. They can go to books for an escape. They can go to books for friends. They can go to books when they need to be alone with themselves and figure things out. I hope they walk away from this book wanting to read more books, and understanding that books can be their friends.

Secondly, I just hope that they go away with a little bit more compassion for their classmate or the kid down the street who might be going through a tough time. Everyone is going through their own personal struggles, and just have a little compassion.

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Angela Cervantes is the Mexican American author of popular children’s novels Lead with Your Heart (American Girls book); Me, Frida, and the Secret of the Peacock Ring; Gaby, Lost and Found; Allie, First at Last and; Lety Out Loud, which won a 2020 Pura Belpré Honor Award. In addition to her original novels, Angela authored the junior novelization for Disney/Pixar’s animated-film, Coco and Disney’s animated film, Encanto.

Angela is a daughter of a retired elementary-school teacher who instilled in her a love for reading and storytelling. Angela writes from her home in Kansas City. When she’s not writing, Angela enjoys reading, running, gazing up at clouds, and taking advantage of Taco Tuesdays.

Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family and dog, Brooklyn.

Sheila Colón-Bagley on Spreading a Joyous Tradition in La Noche Before Three Kings Day

A joyous spirit runs through La Noche Before Three Kings Day. In the bright foyer of a house, a Puerto Rican family has gathered. It’s the night before el Día de los Reyes Magos—the Jan. 6 holiday that marks when the Three Wise Men brought gifts to an infant Jesus.

In the living room, children are surrounded by rolls of gift wrapping paper and small boxes. Their collective voice says: “We wrapped our shoeboxes with glee and delight, knowing the Three Kings would be here tonight.”

La Noche Before Three Kings Day, out now from Harper, was written by debut children’s book author Sheila Colón-Bagley and illustrated by Colombian artist Alejandro Mesa. The book is a sparkling ode to Three Kings Day, a Christian feast day popular throughout Latin America and other parts of the world. There are a variety of ways it’s celebrated but, in this book, the holiday is seen through the eyes of Puerto Rican children. Too excited for the arrival of the Three Kings, they fight against bedtime and place their wrapped boxes beside the front door—an offering for the Three Wise Men’s camels.

Growing up, Sheila Colón-Bagley heard stories about el Día de los Reyes Magos. “My mom would gush about how kids would fill their boxes with grass and put the boxes under their beds,” she recalled. “And the Three Kings would come and leave them gifts.”

Though Colón-Bagley was born in Puerto Rico, she was raised in Philadelphia and didn’t celebrate the beloved Puerto Rican tradition at home.

But that all changed years later, once Colón-Bagley was herself a mother. Her eldest daughter, then 6 years old, had watched a Dora the Explorer episode featuring the tradition. “She came and she asked, ‘Mami, since we’re Puerto Rican, can we celebrate Three Kings Day?’” Colón-Bagley said. “I said, ‘Of course.’ I was just thrilled to share the magic with my children.”

About a decade or so ago, Colón-Bagley searched high and low for books about Three Kings Day and noticed there were “few and far between.” “The ones I found, for me, didn’t quite capture the magic that I saw in my girls’ eyes, and their experience,” she said. “So I decided to write one.”

As you read aloud the dual-lingual text of La Noche Before Three Kings Day, you may feel a familiar tug followed by delight at discovering it was inspired by “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” For years, Colón-Bagley read the famous Christmas poem by Clement Clarke Moore to her daughters. She wondered what it would look like if there was a book about preparing for Three Kings Day, instead of the arrival of Santa Claus.

“At its core, “La Noche Before Three Kings Day” is about the joy of celebrating a beloved holiday tradition with family—and the excitement children feel in partaking.”

Moore’s poem is widely known by its opening lines:

“‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”

Colón-Bagley’s version begins:

“‘Twas la noche before Three Kings Day and all through the casa,
everyone was stirring, even Chico our chihuahua.”

“I love the similarities as well as the differences,” she said of her book and the famous poem. “I purposefully started with ‘everyone was stirring,’ because everyone knows the phrase, ‘no one was stirring, not even a mouse.’ I purposefully wanted to say, this is not that kind of quiet story. You know? We are having a ball. We’re having a party. We’re eating. We’re dancing. We’re celebrating.”

Colón-Bagley ended up setting the story aside to focus on raising her girls. By 2019, she felt it was time to revisit her work. “The writing was calling to me,” she said. She took writing courses and was later awarded a Las Musas mentorship under New York Times and international bestselling author Laura Taylor Namey. Colón-Bagley said Namey helped her hone in some of the rhyme and rhythm of the story.

At its core, La Noche Before Three Kings Day is about the joy of celebrating a beloved holiday tradition with family—and the excitement children feel in partaking. Over time, Three Kings Day has taken on greater meaning to Colón-Bagley. And she has big hopes for young readers who come across her book.

“For children like my daughters who celebrate the holiday, I want them to feel represented and seen, and recognize that their celebrations are worthy of being portrayed in books,” Colón-Bagley said. “I think it’s so important for all children to be able to see some facts about themselves in a book. So for sure, I want children who celebrate the holiday to see themselves, their family and be able to make that connection.”

And for children who don’t celebrate this holiday, the author hopes her book gives them an opportunity to learn about other traditions, and joyous experiences that Latinos and other people of color have.

“We are worth celebrating,” she added.

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Sheila Colón-Bagley is a stay-at-home mother of three. As a Puerto Rico native, she’s long dreamed of writing books featuring multicultural characters that children of all backgrounds would love—for her multicultural daughters, and kids like them—to have books about families who look and live like they do. She’s also a member of the SCBWI, was awarded a Spring 2020 Las Musas mentorship, and was a volunteer on the first-ever virtual Latinx Kidlit Book Festival in December 2020. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Journalism from Temple University and practiced public relations for over twenty-five years before becoming an author. She lives outside of Charlotte, NC, with her family, and their dog, Vader.

Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family and dog, Brooklyn.

Sara E. Echenique on Puerto Rican Resilience & Hope in Our Roof is Blue

Our Roof is Blue opens to a sun-yellow house in what appears to be un campo. Its front windows are cracked, and two others are boarded up with metal shutters. The flag of Puerto Rico is staked on the ground. In the distance are mountains and, if you peer closely, you’ll notice some trees are down.

In front of the yellow house, just beyond the entrance gate, a girl and her brother are feeding chickens.

“Our roof is blue, azul,” the little girl narrates. “But not cerulean like the sky, or an ocean aquamarine. It is a deep, bright blue like the feathers of a peacock or a blue macaw.”

A temporary blue tarp has replaced the siblings’ old white-gray roof after it was ripped away by Hurricane Maria. The keenly observant girl picks up on the differences. Their original roof used to keep the cool in, and didn’t really allow for the pitter-patter sounds of rain. This new roof, though, holds a puddle so large that their mother has to push it with a broom so water doesn’t dump in on them all.

And it is underneath this new roof that the girl detects a major change in her brother, Antonio. She used to fall asleep to his magical stories. But his tales have ceased.

Antonio hasn’t spoken a word since the storm.

Written by Sara E. Echenique and illustrated by Ashley Vargas, Our Roof is Blue is a tender picture book about resilience and rebuilding through the eyes of two Puerto Rican siblings. The story, out now from Charlesbridge, also speaks to the trauma that can be experienced from a natural disaster. The book also has a Spanish version—Nuestro techo es azul.

Puerto Ricans inspired her picture book debut, Echenique told Latinx in Publishing in a recent interview. The author and lawyer was born in Puerto Rico and now lives in South Florida, but her parents and extended family still live on the island.

“They were there during Hurricane Maria,” Echenique said of some of her relatives, including her parents. “And for those of us who were not on the island—part of the diaspora—it was just the most heart wrenching experience I think I’ve ever had.”

She recalled how difficult it was not knowing how her family was during Maria. She’d spend hours on the Internet, searching for information and the “David Begnauds of the world” who would post updates on social media. “We were lucky enough that they made it through the hurricane, but then all of the kind of after-effects were just so tragic,” she said.

At the time, Echenique’s children were still young. She said she began thinking of how they would have processed a natural disaster like this. “I tried to think of it through the eyes of the child, and that’s kind of where it originated,” she said of the idea for Our Roof is Blue.

Then when she was able to visit Puerto Rico a few months after Hurricane Maria, Echenique saw that people were still living without electricity, and all these “horrific things that were compounding on each other.”

Her biggest impression, though, was the number of homes that lacked a roof.

“So as you drive you would just see blue roof, after blue roof, after blue roof, after blue roof,” she said. “I was just blown away because these roofs are not intended to be permanent roofs. These tarps are intended to be 30-day temporary tarps. They’re not made for heat. They’re not made for withstanding long rain or wind or anything like that. They’re truly supposed to be temporary.”

And yet, Echenique noted, there are many homes on the island today that are still using tarps as permanent. For the author, the tarp in Our Roof is Blue is a symbol of failure and hope.

In the book, the unnamed narrator, her brother, and their parents prepare for the storm. Through Vargas’ vivid and scribbly illustrations and Echenique’s clear words, readers are given a window through the preparation before an impending hurricane, and the fear during one. “We thought we were ready for anything that could blow our way,” the girl narrates. “But then… the storm blew loud and fierce all day and all night… I acted brave so I would feel brave. Inside, my heart was pounding.”

The story also touches on the power of community in helping to rebuild, and readers feel hope by the end.

“Young readers, she said, may have many takeaways. The biggest one she hopes they leave with is that Antonio and his sister are like them, regardless of what their lived experiences are.”

One of the most heartening elements of this story is the relationship between the unnamed protagonist and her brother, Antonio. Echenique said this sibling bond was drawn from her own relationship with her siblings.

“And then for me, the central focus [of the book] had to be one of hope, and one of resiliency, because I think that truly defines Puerto Ricans—especially those on the island,” she said. “Because of everything they’ve been through, they have no choice but to be like that. I wanted it to be a celebration of that and not necessarily a tragedy, even though of course there were a lot of tragedies that came out of it.”

Trauma can manifest in many different ways. In Our Roof is Blue, we see the main character’s brother, Antonio, stop speaking. Echenique recalled reading many news articles about Hurricane Maria, and one was about a young girl who hadn’t spoken since the storm. The author wondered how the girl would proceed. “Obviously there’s no follow-up in those types of stories,” she said. “In my mind, I wanted to see her on the other end of it.”

From Echenique’s perspective, stories were such a central feature of how her character, Antonio, expressed himself.

“And so to shut off that side of him so holistically and with such immediacy after this event, for me, was the most obvious way that you could show a child what he’s going through without stating it,” she said. “It was a way that felt digestible to me, and to them. . . Clearly he’s going through something, and in a way that they (readers) can understand it and potentially talk about it, too. Children don’t always have the words, and he didn’t have the words at that time.”

According to Echenique, Our Roof is Blue is also about climate change—though she said it may not be obvious to some. She said climate change affects children like Antonio and his sister every day, in a variety of ways. “This is something that’s going to be reverberating and affecting these children for the rest of their lives, potentially,” she said.

In the end, Echenique acknowledged that she has no control over what someone takes from Our Roof is Blue. Young readers, she said, may have many takeaways. The biggest one she hopes they leave with is that Antonio and his sister are like them, regardless of what their lived experiences are.

“I want them to feel that connection across whatever it is: gender, race, culture, language, whatever—and feel like that connection means that those people are worth advocating for, or worth advocating for yourself as well,” she said.

Echenique said Antonio’s sister helps him in Our Roof is Blue, but he really helps himself, too.

“I want children to feel that sense of empowerment as well,” she said. “Because without that, you’re not going to feel like they can change anything. And they can.”

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Sara E. Echenique is a Puerto Rican lawyer and children’s author living in South Florida with her three young children, husband, and their rescue dog, Luna. She acquired a degree in English from Williams College and a law degree from the University of Michigan School of Law. After almost a decade practicing as a litigator in cold New York City, Sara decided to move her family to a place that felt more like her childhood home. 

Roaring Brook Press published her debut middle grade book, Hispanic Star: Roberto Clemente in September 2022 in both English and Spanish, which received a starred review from the School Library Journal and was long listed for the SCBWI Impact & Legacy Fund's Russell Freedman Award for Nonfiction for a Better World. Charlesbridge Publishing published her debut picture book, Our Roof is Blue (Nuestro techo es azul), in April 2023 in both English and Spanish. Visit www.saraechenique.com for more.

Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family and dog, Brooklyn.

Book Review: Sinner’s Isle by Angela Montoya

Rosalinda is a beautiful witch, or a Majestic, trapped on Sinner’s Isle with others just like her because society deems their magic dangerous. However, an event is held every year for powerful men to exploit these Majestic’s powers. The Offering is a party for the wealthy to ogle the Majestics and to decide which one they want to bind themselves to for their benefit. This year’s Offering is Rosa’s debut as the prized commodity, and she plans to flee. Rosalinda and her friend conjure an escape plan but under the watchful eye of their domineering mistress and Binding Day looming closer, she is forced to rely on a swashbuckling pirate for help.

Mariano is the Prince of Pirates, the son of El Draque, the most feared pirate of all time. This cunning, handsome pirate has sailed many seas and is no stranger to adventure. After their ship is attacked, he is marooned on Sinner’s Isle along with a prisoner and an enchanted chain. He believes his heart’s desire is treasure and gold until he meets the equally cunning Majestic. Behind this brave face is a man who cares deeply about his family, his new friend, and Rosa. Though they have their suspicions of one another, Rosa and Mariano must rely on each other if they want to make it off of Sinner’s Isle in one piece.

“Sinner’s Isle has everything you could ever want in a fantasy: witches, pirates, and magic galore! ”

Sinner’s Isle has everything you could ever want in a fantasy: witches, pirates, and magic galore! Each Majestic has a unique power and I love that with everyone that we meet, we get a taste of what kind of magic they possess. I also loved the inner conflict that Rosa, and other Majestics, had in terms of her powers. While her magic is incredible, I can sympathize with her hesitations and childhood trauma in using her phantoms. The story had so many twists and turns that I felt like I was on the edge of my seat the whole time reading. Angela Montoya beautifully showcases that she can keep a reader’s eyes glued to the page.

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Angela Montoya has been obsessed with the magic of storytelling since she was a little girl. She hasn’t seen a day without a book in her hand, a show tune in her mind, or a movie quote on her lips. Angela comes from a family of storytellers with revolutionary ideas, including her grandfather, José Montoya, who was a celebrated activist and poet laureate. When she isn’t lost in the world of words, Angela can be found on her small farm in Northern California where she’s busy bossing around her partner, their two children, as well as a whole host of animals. Angela has participated as a Round 5 Author-Mentor Match mentee and was selected to be a mentee in Pitch Wars 2020. Sinner’s Isle is her debut novel.

Melissa Gonzalez (she/her) is a UCLA graduate with a major in American Literature & Culture and a minor in Chicana/o & Central American Studies. She loves boba, horror movies, and reading. You can spot her in the fiction, horror/mystery/thriller, and young adult sections of bookstores. Though she is short, she feels as tall as her TBR pile. You can find Melissa on her book Instagram: @floralchapters

October 2023 Latinx Releases

On Sale October 3

Up in Flames by Hailey Alcaraz | YOUNG ADULT

At eighteen, Ruby Ortega is an unapologetic flirt who balances her natural aptitude for economics with her skill in partying hard. But she couldn't care less about those messy college boys—it's her intense, brooding neighbor Ashton who she wants, and even followed to school. Even the fact that he has a girlfriend doesn't deter her . . . whatever Ruby wants, she eventually gets.

Her ruthless determination is tested when wildfires devastate her California hometown, destroying her parents' business and causing an unspeakable tragedy that shatters her to her core. Suddenly, Ruby is the head of the family and responsible for its survival, with no income or experience to rely on. Rebuilding seems hopeless, but with the help of unexpected allies—including a beguiling, dark-eyed boy who seems to understand her better than anyone—Ruby has to try. When she discovers that the fires also displaced many undocumented people in her town, it becomes even more imperative to help. And if she has to make hard choices along the way, can anyone blame her?

The Apple in the Dark by Clarice Lispector | Translated by Benjamin Moser | ADULT FICTION

Martim, fleeing from a murder he believes he committed, plunges into the dark nocturnal jungle: stumbling along, in a state of both fear and wonder, eventually he comes to a remote, quiet ranch and finds work with the two women who own it. The women are tranquil enough before his arrival, but are affected by his radical mystery. Soaked through with Martim’s inner night (his soul is in the darkness where everything is created), the novel vibrates with his perpetual searching state of vigil. Often he feels close to an epiphany: “for the first time he was present in the moment in which whatever is happening is happening.” Yet such flashes flicker out, so he’s ever on the watch for “life to take on the dimensions of a destiny.”

In an interview, Lispector once said: “I am Martim.” As she puts it in The Apple in the Dark: “All I’ve got is hunger. And that unstable way of grasping an apple in the dark―without letting it fall.”

The Sanctuary by Gustavo Eduardo Abrevaya | Translated by Andrea G. Labinger | ADULT FICTION

When their car breaks down outside of the small Argentinian village of Los Huemules, indie filmmaker Álvaro and his wife, muse, and lead actress Alicia consider it a minor inconvenience. Seeking shelter in the town's lone motel, they settle in for a night of decadent fun, but after Alicia disappears without a trace the following morning, Álvaro embarks on an increasingly desperate quest to find her. Armed only with a video camera and with a growing sense of dread, Álvaro begins gradually uncovering the town's many dark secrets, with each revelation being more horrific than the last.

Alebrijes by Donna Barba Higuera | MIDDLE GRADE

This is the story as it was told to me by Leandro the Mighty.

For 400 years, Earth has been a barren wasteland. The few humans that survive scrape together an existence in the cruel city of Pocatel – or go it alone in the wilderness beyond, filled with wandering spirits and wyrms. They don’t last long.

13 year-old pickpocket Leandro and his sister Gabi do what they can to forge a life in Pocatel. The city does not take kindly to Cascabel like them – the descendants of those who worked the San Joaquin Valley for generations.

When Gabi is caught stealing precious fruit from the Pocatelan elite, Leando takes the fall. But his exile proves more than he ever could have imagined -- far from a simple banishment, his consciousness is placed inside an ancient drone and left to fend on its own. But beyond the walls of Pocatel lie other alebrijes like Leandro who seek for a better world -- as well as mutant monsters, wasteland pirates, a hidden oasis, and the truth.

The Devil's Promise by Celso Hurtado | YOUNG ADULT

San Antonio is full of secrets, and seventeen-year-old Erasmo Cruz investigates the strangest of them. After gaining renown for surviving the city's legendary Ghost Tracks, he has set up shop as a paranormal investigator. But helping exorcize other people’s demons doesn’t seem to relieve his own; his best friend Rat has abandoned him, his grandmother is nearing death, and his own health has taken a sudden decline.

None of these hardships can prepare Erasmo for the story his newest client brings him. Two decades after a strange ritual at a rural ranch, Bradley Erickson is being hunted by the Devil. In exchange for the life of his dreams, Bradley must surrender the blood of his child. The case hurls Erasmo into a dark web of cults, bargains, and broken pasts. Only one thing is certain: the Devil keeps his promises.

Meet Me at Midnight (Bad Princesses #2) by Jennifer Torres | MIDDLE GRADE

Princesses don’t break the rules, but they may rewrite them…

Every girl dreams of going to the Fine and Ancient Institute for the Royal to learn how to be a princess. But Dalia and Dominga could not be any less enchanted. They are different…the same kind of different. Neither of them wants to be the fairest of them all. They want to join a secret society of villains at the Bewitched Academy of the Dreadful, and tonight they have another chance to prove they belong there. It's the night of the Starlight Search. It's as sickeningly sweet as it sounds. So, Dalia and Dominga scheme, and plot, and set out to stop the princesses in their tracks. Will it be enough to get them their invitations to the BAD?

Dreams of Green: A Three Kings' Day Story by Mariel Jungkunz | Illustrated by Mónica Paola Rodriguez | PICTURE BOOK

It's eleven days after Christmas and Lucía yearns to be in lush Puerto Rico celebrating Día de los Reyes with family and friends. But this year, instead of dancing and singing in the parrandas of her Puerto Rican neighborhood, she is surrounded by cold and silence in snow-blanketed Ohio. How will she ever be able to guide the Three Kings to her new home in the frosty Midwest? This picture book is a celebration of Puerto Rican culture, heartwarming family tradition, and a reminder that we all carry a piece of home with us wherever life may take us.

Mari and the Curse of El Cocodrilo by Adrianna Cuevas | MIDDLE GRADE

If Mari Feijoo could, she would turn her family’s Peak Cubanity down a notch, just enough so that her snooping neighbor and classmate Mykenzye wouldn’t have anything to tease her about. That’s why this year, there’s no way that Mari’s joining in on one of the big-gest Feijoo family traditions—burning the New Year’s Eve effigy her abuela makes.

Only Mari never suspects that failing to toss her effigy in the fire would bring something much worse than sneering words at school: a curse of bad luck from El Cocodrilo. At first, it’s just possessed violins and grade sabotaging pencils, but once El Cocodrilo learns that he becomes more powerful with each new misery, her luck goes from bad to nightmarish as the curse spreads to her friend Keisha.

Instead of focusing on Mari’s mariachi band tryout and Keisha’s fencing tournament, the pair, along with their friend Juan Carlos, are racing against the clock to break the curse. But when Mari discovers her family’s gift to call upon their ancestors, she and her friends will have to find a way to work with the unexpected help that arrives from the far corners of Mari’s family tree. Only will it be enough to defeat El Cocodrilo before he makes their last year of elementary school the worst ever and tears their friendship apart? 

The Broke Hearts by Matt Mendez | YOUNG ADULT

A year after losing their best friend, JD and Danny are still brokenhearted. JD’s impetuous decision to join the Air Force only makes him yearn for “before” more than ever. Danny, who’d rather paint murals than open a book and certainly never thought of himself as college material, makes the equally impulsive choice to do what Juan will never be able to and enrolls in a community college.

Danny’s father, The Sarge, is proud of him for the first time ever for living out Sarge’s own dream of being a first-generation college student, but Danny can’t shake the thought that it should be Juan, not him. And studying hasn’t gotten any easier for him despite his new academic goals. When Danny is on the verge of flunking out and JD gets notified of imminent deployment, the two are forced to confront their shared grief that led them to these paths. Can they learn to live lives that are their own in honor of Juan, rather than for him?

A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens by Raul Palma | ADULT FICTION

Hugo Contreras’s world in Miami has shrunk. Since his wife died, Hugo’s debt from her medical bills has become insurmountable. He shuffles between his efficiency apartment, La Carreta (his favorite place for a cafecito), and a botanica in a strip mall where he works as the resident babaláwo.

One day, Hugo’s nemesis calls. Alexi Ramirez is a debt collector who has been hounding Hugo for years, and Hugo assumes this call is just more of the same. Except this time Alexi is calling because he needs spiritual help. His house is haunted. Alexi proposes a deal: If Hugo can successfully cleanse his home before Noche Buena, Alexi will forgive Hugo’s debt. Hugo reluctantly accepts, but there’s one issue: Despite being a babaláwo, he doesn’t believe in spirits.

Hugo plans to do what he’s done with dozens of clients before: use sleight of hand and amateur psychology to convince Alexi the spirits have departed. But when the job turns out to be more than Hugo bargained for, Hugo’s old tricks don’t work. Memories of his past—his childhood in the Bolivian silver mines and a fraught crossing into the United States as a boy—collide with Alexi’s demons in an explosive climax.

Latinísimo: Home Recipes from the Twenty-One Countries of Latin America: A Cookbook by Sandra A. Gutierrez | ADULT NONFICTION

In this monumental work, culinary expert Sandra A. Gutierrez shares more than three hundred everyday dishes—plus countless variations—that home cooks everywhere will want to replicate. Divided by ingredient—Beans, Corn, Yuca, Quinoa, and almost two dozen more—and featuring an extensive pantry section that establishes the fundamentals of Latin American cooking, Latinísimo brings together real recipes from home cooks in Argentina, Brazil, Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

These are recipes that reflect the incredible breadth and richness of the culinary traditions of the region. Sweeping in its scope, and filled with history and stories, Latinísimo is an utterly essential resource for every kitchen.

El Rey of Gold Teeth by Reyes Ramirez | POETRY

In El Rey of Gold Teeth, Reyes Ramirez explores living in America as a first-generation American of Salvadoran and Mexican descent, living among conflicting histories. Through the voices of an astronaut, a tennis player, a drag queen, family members, an alternate version of the self, and even a turtle, these propulsive poems embody the many marginalized voices demanding to be remembered in a nation that requires erasure of histories.

Colonizing languages and subverting forms, rerouting histories, and finding the mundane made extraordinary, El Rey of Gold Teeth breaks open notions of destiny, in humorous and devastating ways, to reimagine the past and present a new future where lack transforms to abundance, where there will be many answers to every question. Reyes Ramirez's debut poetry collection plays in spaces of both elegy and joy, and introduces a vibrant new talent.

The Girl Who Cried Diamonds & Other Stories by Rebecca Hirsch Garcia | ADULT FICTION

A girl born in a small, unnamed pueblo is blessed--or cursed--with the ability to produce valuable gems from her bodily fluids. A tired wife and mother escapes the confines of her oppressive life and body by shapeshifting into a cloud. A girl reckons with the death of her father and her changing familial dynamics while slowly, mysteriously losing her physical senses.

Infused with keen insight and presented in startling prose, the stories in this dark, magnetic collection by newcomer Rebecca Hirsch Garcia invite the reader into an uncanny world out of step with reality while exploring the personal and interpersonal in a way that is undeniably, distinctly human.

On Sale October 10

The Fall of Whit Rivera by Crystal Maldonado | YOUNG ADULT

Frenemies Whit and Zay have been at odds for years (ever since he broke up with her in, like, the most embarrassing way imaginable), so when they’re forced to organize the fall formal together, it's a literal disaster. Sparks fly as Whitney—type-A, passionate, a perfectionist, and a certified sweater-weather fanatic—butts heads with Zay, a dry, relaxed skater boy who takes everything in stride. But not all of those sparks are bad. . . .

Has their feud been a big misunderstanding all along?

Blisteringly funny and profoundly well-observed, The Fall of Whit Rivera is a snug and cozy autumn romcom that also tackles weightier topics like PCOS, chronic illness, sexuality, fatphobia, Latine identity, and class. Funny, honest, insightful, romantic, and poignant, it is classic Crystal Maldonado—and it will have her legion of fans absolutely swooning.

Desire Museum by Danielle Cadena Deulen | POETRY

Divided into four sections and shaped by female-identified embodiment, Desire Museum touches on lost love and friendship, climate crisis, lesbian relationships, and the imprisonment of children at the U.S.-Mexico border. These poems trace the pleasures and pitfalls of sex, the anxieties of motherhood, and the ramifications of interpersonal, sociopolitical, and environmental trauma in women's lives. In these pages, Deulen holds up a candle to desire itself, questioning what it means to recognize and embrace one's desires, or what it might mean to let them go.

Hatchet Girls by Diana Rodriguez Wallach | YOUNG ADULT

When Mariella Morse accuses her boyfriend, Vik Gomez, of murdering her wealthy parents with an axe, the town is quick to believe her. It doesn’t help that Vik is caught standing over her parents’ bodies with blood on his hands, unable to remember anything about the night in question.

But Vik’s sister, Tessa, knows that Vik would never be capable of such a gruesome crime. Haunted by the mistakes she made that led her family to move to Fall River, MA in the first place, she sets out to prove her brother’s innocence.

Tessa’s search for answers will lead her into a sprawling, notoriously cursed forest, where she and Mariella must face a darkness that has lurked within their town since before the days of Lizzie Borden—the original axe murderess of Fall River.

The Prince & the Coyote by David Bowles | Illustrated by Amanda Mijangos | YOUNG ADULT

Mexico. 1418.

Meet Prince Acolmiztli. Puma of the Acolhua People. Heir to his father's throne. Half Acolhuan, half Mexica. Singer. Warrior. Poet. Sixteen years old.

And now, betrayed. A palace plot, placed by the deadly Tepaneca Empire, kills his mother and siblings, puts his father's army into retreat, and sends Prince Acolmiztli into a treacherous exile. Battling hunger, snow-swept mountains, and the machinations of the city-states all around him, Prince Acolmiztli vows revenge. It will take years, but he will return to seek justice. And he'll do it with a new name:

Nezahualcoyotl. Fasting Coyote. One of the most legendary figures in history.

The Young Teacher and the Great Serpent by Irene Vasco |Illustrated by Juan Palomino | Translated by Lawrence Schimel | PICTURE BOOK

A young teacher sets out for the Amazon rain forest, eager to share geography, science, and math with the remote community of Las Delicias. The town’s children love the books the young teacher brings, and yet they keep repeating legends about a great and dangerous serpent. The young teacher can’t believe her students still care about that nonsense. But as the river rises, those stories don’t seem so strange anymore. Maybe books aren’t the only way to discover the wisdom of past generations…

The Young Teacher and the Great Serpent is a poetic, thought-provoking exploration of how stories can protect and guide a community. Bold, dynamic art and lyrical writing will open unforgettable conversations about cross-cultural relationships, the importance of indigenous knowledge, and what it means to be a lifelong learner.

Dwell Time: A Memoir of Art, Exile, and Repair by Rosa Lowinger | ADULT NONFICTION

Dwell Time is a term that measures the amount of time something takes to happen - immigrants waiting at a border, human eyes on a website, the minutes people wait in an airport, and, in art conservation, the time it takes for a chemical to react with a material.

Renowned art conservator Rosa Lowinger spent a difficult childhood in Miami among people whose losses in the Cuban revolution, and earlier by the decimation of family in the Holocaust, clouded all family life.

After moving away to escape the "cloying exile's nostalgia," Lowinger discovered the unique field of art conservation, which led her to work in Tel Aviv, Philadelphia, Rome, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Charleston, Marfa, South Dakota, and Port-Au-Prince. Eventually returning to Havana for work, Lowinger suddenly finds herself embarking on a remarkable journey of family repair that begins, as it does in conservation, with an understanding of the origins of damage.

Inspired by and structured similarly to Primo Levi's The Periodic Table, this first memoir by a working art conservator is organized by chapters based on the materials Lowinger handles in her thriving private practice - Marble, Limestone, Bronze, Ceramics, Concrete, Silver, Wood, Mosaic, Paint, Aluminum, Terrazzo, Steel, Glass and Plastics. Lowinger offers insider accounts of conservation that form the backbone of her immigrant family's story of healing that beautifully juxtaposes repair of the material with repair of the personal. Through Lowinger's relentless clear-eyed efforts to be the best practitioner possible while squarely facing her fraught personal and work relationships, she comes to terms with her identity as Cuban and Jewish, American and Latinx.

A Delicate Marriage by Margarita Barresi | ADULT FICTION

Isabela, a wealthy woman, sacrifices her artistic aspirations to marry Marco, a penniless man dedicated to improving conditions on the island. As the island's insular government enacts pro-U.S. policies, Marco builds a real estate empire while struggling to maintain his populist principles. Meanwhile, Isabela feels unfulfilled in her traditional role as a wife and mother and becomes disillusioned with Marco's shifting moral compass. She begins to identify with anti-U.S. factions, leading a dangerous double life that puts her family in peril.

As political violence threatens their paradise, Isabela and Marco question whether their marriage, like the island's relationship with the U.S., should continue. Margarita Barresi's debut novel celebrates Puerto Rican culture while delving into themes of class, oppression, and the effects of colonialism through the lens of a marriage.

Blackouts by Justin Torres | ADULT FICTION

Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly but who has haunted the edges of his life: Juan Gay. Playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized, Juan has a project to pass along, one built around a true artifact of a book―Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns―and its devastating history. This book contains accounts collected in the early twentieth century from queer subjects by a queer researcher, Jan Gay, whose groundbreaking work was then co-opted by a committee, her name buried. The voices of these subjects have been filtered, muted, but it is possible to hear them from within and beyond the text, which, in Juan’s tattered volumes, has been redacted with black marker on nearly every page. As Juan waits for his end, he and the narrator recount for each other moments of joy and oblivion; they resurrect loves, lives, mothers, fathers, minor heroes. In telling their own stories and the story of the book, they resist the ravages of memory and time. The past is with us, beside us, ahead of us; what are we to create from its gaps and erasures?

A book about storytelling―its legacies, dangers, delights, and potential for change―and a bold exploration of form, art, and love, Justin Torres’s Blackouts uses fiction to see through the inventions of history and narrative. A marvel of creative imagination, it draws on testimony, photographs, illustrations, and a range of influences as it insists that we look long and steadily at what we have inherited and what we have made―a world full of ghostly shadows and flashing moments of truth. A reclamation of ransacked history, a celebration of defiance, and a transformative encounter, Blackouts mines the stories that have been kept from us and brings them into the light.

On Sale October 17

Legitimate Kid: A Memoir By Aida Rodriguez | ADULT NONFCITION

Aida Rodriguez has, to put it mildly, lived a whirlwind life. Her rags to-riches story is mind-blowing: She was kidnapped as a child by her mother in the Dominican Republic and brought to the US. She was later kidnapped again by her grandmother and uncle, and moved from New York to Florida. As an adult, she ended a difficult marriage and endured homelessness with her children in Los Angeles. But through it all she never lost her sense of humor.

Born with a wonderful wit and an irrepressible spirit, Aida used her gifts and worked tirelessly, turning tragedy and pain into biting comedy that takes on everything from misogyny and racism to social media and news headlines. She eventually released a hit HBO Max special which led to multiple development deals—success that won her a nationwide audience, opened doors, and helped her expand the way Latinos are represented in comedy.

In this, her highly anticipated first book, Aida charts her many ups and downs. From personal setbacks to career highs and everything in between, Legitimate Kid is endearing, shocking, and ultimately life-affirming.

All That Rises by Alma García | ADULT FICTION

In the border city of El Paso, Texas, two guardedly neighboring families have plunged headlong into a harrowing week. Rose Marie DuPre, wife and mother, has abandoned her family. On the doorstep of the Gonzales home, long-lost rebel Inez appears. As Rose Marie’s husband, Huck (manager of a maquiladora), and Inez’s brother, Jerry (a college professor), struggle separately with the new shape of their worlds, Lourdes, the Mexican maid who works in both homes, finds herself entangled in the lives of her employers, even as she grapples with a teenage daughter who only has eyes for el otro lado—life, American style.

What follows is a story in which mysteries are unraveled, odd alliances are forged, and the boundaries between lives blur in destiny-changing ways—all in a place where the physical border between two countries is as palpable as it is porous, and the legacies of history are never far away. There are no easy solutions to the issues the characters face in this story, and their various realities—as undocumented workers, Border Patrol agents, the American supervisor of a Mexican factory employing an impoverished workforce—never play out against a black-and-white moral canvas. Instead, they are complex human beings with sometimes messy lives who struggle to create a place for themselves in a part of the world like no other, even as they are forced to confront the lives they have made.

On Sale October 24

Nefando by Mónica Ojeda |Translated by Sarah Booker | ADULT FICTION

Six young artists share an apartment in Barcelona: Kiki Ortega, a researcher writing a pornographic novel; Iván Herrera, a writer whose prose reveals a deeply conflicted relationship with his body; three siblings, Irene, Emilio, and Cecilia, who quietly search for ways to transcend their abuse as children; and El Cuco Martínez, a video-game designer whose creations push beneath the substrate of the digital world. All of them are connected in different ways to Nefando, a controversial cult video game whose purpose remains a mystery. In the parallel reality of the game, players found relief from the pain of past trauma and present shame, but also a frighteningly elastic sense of self and ethics. Is Nefando a game for horror enthusiasts, a challenge to players' morals, or a poetic exercise? What happens in a virtual world that admits every taboo?

I'll Be the Moon: A Migrant Child's Story by Phillip D. Cortez | Illustrated by Mafs Rodríguez Alpide | PICTURE BOOK

In her journey North, a child is shepherded by the moon as she aims to reunite with her father across the border. The moon inspires and shepherds the child and mother on their journey North to reunite with her father. It also reminds her of home and her abuela and her small town. Most importantly, the moon helps her dream and pushes her forward.

With vivid and picturesque words by Phillip D. Cortez and imaginative illustrations by Mafs Rodríguez Alpide, I'll Be the Moon shows how la luna brings light to the darkness and guides us to those we love.

Beautiful Monster: A Becoming by Miles Borrero | ADULT NONFICTION

Nearing the age of forty, with an entire life already lived as a woman—half in Colombia, half in the US—Miles Borrero comes face to face with his father’s impending death. Suddenly realizing that he has been stalling his transition for fear of losing his family’s love, this moment catalyzes Miles’s determination to be fully known as his father’s son before it is too late.

In Beautiful Monster, Miles chronicles his unusual childhood, by turns riveting and hilarious, in ’80s and ’90s Colombia during the Pablo Escobar years, as well as his move to Salt Lake City to pursue acting and the winding trajectory that eventually lands him in the New York City yoga scene. Within these very different cultures, the realities of being queer and trans echo poignantly through the triumphs, heartbreaks, family dynamics, spiritual pursuits, and relationships that propel Miles along his path.

Sublimely nuanced and written in ravishing prose that is as unique and irresistible as its subject, Beautiful Monster is one person’s story of navigating the pressures to perform femininity while becoming a gender outlaw. Brimming with wonder, humor, and mythos, entertaining and enlightening in equal measure, this book offers a compelling case for embracing one’s true nature.

Secrets We Tell the Sea by Martha Riva Palacio | Translated by Lourdes Heuer | MIDDLE GRADE

The only good thing about Sofia's mom sending her to live with her abuela is that finally Sofia and the sea will meet face-to-face.

The sea has always called to Sofia, even when she and her mom lived in a big city nowhere near its shore. That's how Sofia always knew she was a mermaid--that, and the fact that the sea and its creatures are much easier to understand than people. Like her mother, who is sending Sofia away instead of her barracuda of a boyfriend; that's a flying fish if Sofia's ever seen one, spending so much time reaching for the sky she can't see what's going on below the surface. When Sofia meets her abuela, she knows she's up against a sea dragon: fierce and guarded, but maybe not so bad when you're the one she's guarding. Still, Sofia longs to meet another mermaid, someone who understands her and the sea completely.

When Sofia meets Louisa, it seems like she's found just that--until the sea betrays them both in one irreversible moment. Soon their town is overtaken by hurricanes and floods and emotions and questions so big Sofia doesn't know what to do with them. Like, how do you catch a flying fish? How do you make friends with the sea again? And how do you calm the rough waters within yourself?

The Bronx Is My Home by Alyssa Reynoso-Morris | Illustrated by Kim Holt | PICTURE BOOK

Welcome to The Bronx, New York! A picture book celebration of hometown pride including the history, landscape, cuisines, cultures, and activities unique to this vibrant community.

There's only one place where you can see bodegas and businesses bustling on every street, taste the most delicious empanadas in the world, smell the salty sea air of Pelham Bay, and pet horses at the Bronx Equestrian Center. From sunrise to sunset, Santiago and Mami have many treasures to enjoy in their neighborhood on a beautiful Saturday, including colorful birds on the Siwanoy Trail and fresh cannolis on Arthur Avenue.

This energetic and joyful family story offers both a journey through and a love letter to this special borough.

On Sale October 31

Sinner's Isle by Angela Montoya | YOUNG ADULT

Rosalinda is trapped on Sinner’s Isle, an island filled with young women like her—Majestics, beautiful witches loathed by society for their dangerous magic yet revered by powerful men who want to use them. 

For years, she has been kept under the watchful, calculating eye of Doña Lucia. Now eighteen, Rosa will be the prized commodity at this year’s Offering, a fiesta for the wealthy to engage in drink, damsels, and debauchery. That is why she must flee—before someone forces the vicious phantoms within her to destroy everything she touches. 

Handsome, swashbuckling Mariano has long sailed the high seas as the Prince of Pirates. Then the king’s fleet attacks his father’s infamous ship, leaving him marooned on Sinner’s Isle with only an enchanted chain meant to lead him to his heart’s desire. Instead, he falls into the hands of a brazen (although) bewitching headache—Rosa.

Together they must outwit each other and their enemies before the Offering ends and it’s too late to escape the perils of Sinner’s Isle.

What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez | YOUNG ADULT

Bolivian-Argentinian Inez Olivera belongs to the glittering upper society of nineteenth century Buenos Aires, and like the rest of the world, the town is steeped in old world magic that’s been largely left behind or forgotten. Inez has everything a girl might want, except for the one thing she yearns the most: her globetrotting parents—who frequently leave her behind.

When she receives word of their tragic deaths, Inez inherits their massive fortune and a mysterious guardian, an archeologist in partnership with his Egyptian brother-in-law. Yearning for answers, Inez sails to Cairo, bringing her sketch pads and a golden ring her father sent to her for safekeeping before he died. But upon her arrival, the old world magic tethered to the ring pulls her down a path where she soon discovers there’s more to her parent’s disappearance than what her guardian led her to believe.

With her guardian’s infuriatingly handsome assistant thwarting her at every turn, Inez must rely on ancient magic to uncover the truth about her parent’s disappearance—or risk becoming a pawn in a larger game that will kill her.

Motherland: A Memoir by Paula Ramón| Translated by Julia Sanches & Jennifer Shyue | ADULT NONFICTION

In the span of a generation, oil-rich Venezuela spiraled into a dire state of economic collapse. Reporter Paula Ramón experienced the crisis firsthand as her middle-class family saw their quality of life deteriorate.

Public services no longer functioned. Money lost its value. Her mother couldn’t afford to buy food, which was increasingly scarce. The once-prosperous country fell into ruin. Like many others, Ramón’s family struggled to survive each day in their beloved city, Maracaibo―until, one by one, they each made the unbearable choice to leave the home they love.

In the end, it was Ramón’s mother, a widow, who stayed behind, loyal to the only home she’d ever known. In this heartbreaking mix of lived experience, family chronicle, and journalistic essay, Paula Ramón explores the anguish of her own relationships set against the staggering collapse of a country.

Motherland is a uniquely human account about the ties that bind―and the fragile concept of home.

Eventually, Inevitably/ Tarde o temprano era inevitable: My Writing Life in Verse/ Mi vida de escritor en verso by René Saldaña Jr. | YOUNG ADULT

When students ask author René Saldaña, Jr. how one becomes a writer, he says, “It’s complicated.” In this memoir written in verse for young adults, the author remembers his boyhood and the path that led to his becoming a reader, writer and scholar. He begins with “The Deets: My Parents as Kids,” and recounts “’Apá was born a long time ago / ‘Amá a few years after him.” His father finished elementary school in Mier, Tamaulipas, and then went to Nuevo Laredo to study machines. His parents married in Chihuahua, Texas: “It’s got one street / called Charco, or mud-puddle.”

René’s childhood along the Texas-Mexico border was filled with lots of family—cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents; his abuelo told countless stories that helped define the boy. He read magazines at the grocery store, watched his mother read Selecciones, the Spanish-language version of Reader’s Digest, and realized writing poetry was the way to get a girlfriend. But he remembers junior high school as “those blasted years” and the teachers “who made me fall / out of love with reading a book.” Later he found a book in the library in which he saw himself for the first time; there were kids that spoke Spanish, had brown skin and names like his.

This touching portrait depicts the development of a writer and the impact his rural, Mexican-American community had on his growth into a published author and university scholar. Written in an accessible style and available in a bilingual format, this moving and often humorous memoir in narrative verse will appeal to all teens. Young people of color and reluctant male readers will find it of particular interest.

Huizache Women by Estella Gonzalez | ADULT FICTION

Merced is as strong and determined as the huizache tree her father tried to chop down, but that kept growing back every year, even after he burned its roots. Her aunt marries her off to the most eligible man in their small Mexican town to protect her from her own father, who believes the girl’s developing body is his to use. In chapters spanning early twentieth century El Sauz, Mexico, mid-century El Paso and contemporary Los Angeles, this engrossing novel chronicles the harrowing yet darkly funny trials of three generations of resilient women. Merced is a young wife and mother in a loveless marriage when she meets the handsome but faithless Leandro in Ciudad Juárez. Her first taste of passion drives Merced to uproot her three daughters and embark on a daunting journey to the United States to reunite with her lover. Can her daughters and granddaughter break Leandro’s hold on Merced so they can finally put down their own roots? Or will they also have to break away and run? The women struggle with love, loss and survival against the expectations of patriarchal, misogynist societies on both sides of the border. This saga offers a spellbinding look at love conquered and lost, love freely given and purchased, working-class Mexican and Chicano communities and their love-hate relationship with American assimilation—all set to the popular music of both countries.

Tepozteco's Belly by José Agustín | YOUNG ADULT

Alaín’s parents have a home in Tepoztlán, outside of Mexico City, and he invites a group of friends to spend the long Mexican Independence weekend there. They can’t wait to hang out, play video games and climb up to the Toltec pyramid that’s in the town! 

Once there, the city kids meet some of the locals, including Pancho, who’s about their age, and his mother, a curandera who does cleansings. The young people are thrilled to be able to watch the indigenous ceremony that involves copal incense, candles and rubbing an egg along the body. But more exciting is Pancho’s invitation to explore a large cave he has recently discovered. 

They set out early the next day and find the cave entrance without too much trouble, but soon things get weird. In the huge, dark cavern, they encounter an assortment of odd people. Before long, the friends realize they’ve accidentally entered Tepozteco’s belly, where the ancient Aztec gods live. Mother figure and the goddess of sustenance, Tonantzín, and Xiutecutli, the lord of fire, want to help the kids escape, but others, including the fearsome earth mother goddess Coatlicue, want to subject the intruders to a bloody sacrifice! Soon the gods agree to a test to decide whether they will live or die. Introducing teens to Mexico’s pre-Hispanic culture and religion, this adventure novel blending fantasy and myth races to an exciting conclusion sure to satisfy young readers.  

Testimony of a Shifter by Emma Pérez | ADULT FICTION

Imprisoned by the totalitarian government, Dr. Benito Espinoza practices for his weekly interrogations by recounting his story to his thirteen-year-old daughter. He tells her about turning his back on his ability to shift his gender from male to female—to Alejandra—to become a scholar in the Grand Library. Most academics are Residents who inherited their seats and believe Descendants like Ben don't have the intellectual ability to be a person of letters. Ben conforms to the laws against transmuting, so he manages to secure a place in the library. His life's purpose is to prove Descendants are as capable as Residents. But an encounter with a clever, beautiful Descendant leads to his unwitting participation in the rebellion against the Impresario and his White Guards. Soon the shifter is involved with the Rebels, trying to save a younger generation of Descendants and shifters from the horrific experiments and violence perpetrated against them. In a non-linear narrative in which "time is false," author and scholar Emma Pérez offers a fascinating speculative novel about alternate histories, while pondering race, discrimination and transgender people.

Grandma, Where Will Your Love Go? / Abuela, ¿adónde irá tu amor? by Adriana Camacho-Church | Illustrated by Gastón Hauviller | PICTURE BOOK

“Grandma and I dance together, / sew together, / bake together / and go to the market together.” This engaging picture book depicts the loving relationship between a young girl and her grandmother and the girl’s growing realization that her grandmother will not always be physically present. Her beloved abuela “walks slower, sits longer and takes more medicine.” Abuela comforts her granddaughter by using nature’s beauty, power and mystery to reassure her that life continues—and so does love. The child will feel her touch in the sun’s warmth and her kiss in each raindrop. When the wind lifts her hair, she will know her grandmother is there. The beauty of sunlit dragonflies and the smell of baked bread will be reminders of her love. “Feel my love in the power of waterfalls,” Grandma says. “Feel it in a moonlit darkness and in the sprout from a seed.” The love they share will surround her always. With beautiful illustrations by Gastón Hauviller depicting a child enjoying activities with a special adult, this bilingual book about loss, healing and a unique bond will connect children to the idea that we come from and return to nature. Kids will eagerly recount—or even write about—their favorite memories of time spent with a beloved family member or friend.

Mariano’s First Glove / El primer guante de Mariano by Robert Casilla | PICTURE BOOK

Mariano Rivera, a record-breaking major league baseball player, grew up in a small fishing village in Panama. His father had his own boat and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps, but Mariano didn’t want to be a fisherman. He loved baseball! Without money for equipment, the boy and his friends had to be creative. They improvised a mango tree limb for a bat, made gloves out of cardboard and wrapped a rock in shredded fishing nets and tape to create a ball! Even though Mariano was the smallest, he was quick and athletic, and he constantly practiced hitting, catching and throwing to improve his game. After high school, he worked with his father, but when their boat sank, he was more convinced than ever that fishing was not for him! He started his baseball career as a shortstop for a local team, which made it to the national championship two years in a row. A New York Yankees scout invited Mariano to a tryout, and soon after he was hired to play for a minor league team in Tampa, Florida. He joined the New York Yankees in 1995 and went on to become a great relief pitcher and top closer, helping his team to win five World Series. He broke the record in 2011 for the most games saved as a closer, and in 2019 became the first major league player to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame with 100% of the votes. With engaging text and lively illustrations by acclaimed artist Robert Casilla, this book is sure to win many young fans.

2023 Latine National Book Award Finalists

FICTION FINALIST
Blackouts by Justin Torres
Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers

A book about storytelling—its legacies, dangers, delights, and potential for change—and a bold exploration of form, art, and love, Justin Torres's Blackouts uses fiction to see through the inventions of history and narrative. A marvel of creative imagination, it draws on testimony, photographs, illustrations, and a range of influences as it insists that we look long and steadily at what we have inherited and what we have made—a world full of ghostly shadows and flashing moments of truth. A reclamation of ransacked history, a celebration of defiance, and a transformative encounter, Blackouts mines the stories that have been kept from us and brings them into the light.

NONFICTION FINALIST
Liliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister's Search for Justice by Cristina Rivera Garza
Hogarth / Penguin Random House

September 2019. Cristina Rivera Garza travels from her home in Texas to Mexico City, in search of an old, unresolved criminal file. "My name is Cristina Rivera Garza," she wrote in her request to the attorney general, "and I am writing to you as a relative of Liliana Rivera Garza, who was murdered on July 16, 1990."

In luminous, poetic prose, Rivera Garza tells a singular yet universally resonant story: that of a spirited, wondrously hopeful young woman who tried to survive in a world of increasingly normalized gendered violence. Following her decision to recover her sister's file, Rivera Garza traces the history of Liliana's life, from her early romance with a handsome but possessive and short-tempered man, to that exhilarating final summer of 1990 when Liliana loved, thought, and traveled more widely and freely than she ever had before. Using her remarkable talents as an acclaimed scholar, novelist, and poet, Rivera Garza collected and curated evidence—handwritten letters, police reports, school notebooks, interviews with Liliana's loved ones—to render and understand a life beyond the crime itself. Through this remarkable and genre-defying memoir, Rivera Garza confronts the trauma of losing her sister and examines from multiple angles how this tragedy continues to shape who she is—and what she fights for—today.

TRANSLATED LITERATURE FINALIST
Abyss by Pilar Quintana, Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman
World Editions

Claudia is an impressionable eight-year-old girl, trying to understand the world through the eyes of the adults around her. But her hardworking father hardly speaks a word, while her unhappy mother spends her days reading celebrity lifestyle magazines, tending to her enormous collection of plants, and filling Claudia’s head with stories about women who end their lives in tragic ways. Then an interloper arrives, disturbing the delicate balance of family life, and Claudia’s world starts falling apart. In this strikingly vivid portrait of Cali, Colombia, Claudia’s acute observations remind us that children are capable of discerning extremely complex realities even if they cannot fully understand them. In Abyss, Quintana leads us brilliantly into the lonely heart of the child we have all once been, driven by fear of abandonment.

TRANSLATED LITERATURE FINALIST
The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel, Translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato
New Vessel Press

A letter has beckoned to Raimundo since he received it over fifty years ago from his youthful passion, handsome Cícero. But having grown up in an impoverished area of Brazil where the demands of manual labor thwarted his becoming literate, Raimundo has long been unable to read. As young men, he and Cícero fell in love, only to have Raimundo’s father brutally beat his son when he discovered their affair. Even after Raimundo succeeds in making a life for himself in the big city, he continues to be haunted by this secret missive full of longing from the distant past. Now at age seventy-one, he at last acquires a true education and the ability to access the letter. Exploring Brazil’s little-known hinterland as well its urban haunts, this is a sweeping novel of repression, violence, and shame, along with their flip side: survival, endurance, and the ultimate triumph of an unforgettable figure on society’s margins. The Words That Remain explores the universal power of the written word and language, and how they affect all our relationships. 

#SalaSundays with Lauren Cepero

Lauren Cepero hosted our Instagram, on September 10, 2023 for our weekly #SalaSundays series. Below are a few questions that we asked Lauren.

Latinx In Publishing (LxP): What do you do?

Lauren Cepero (LC): I am a Publicity Manager for Kids & YA titles at Page Street.

LxP: How did you get started?

(LC): From middle school through my third year of undergrad, I had planned to become a journalist but when I looked around and saw how passionate everyone else in my final classes were, compared to my waning interest, I knew that journalism wasn’t going to be the path for me. At the time, I was working at the university library and ended up talking to a librarian about my future options. They suggested publishing! Despite being a voracious reader, I had never thought about how books were made. I tried for internships but didn’t have much luck, so I applied for the Publishing & Writing graduate program at Emerson College. From there, I did many internships and eventually went on to work for HMH Books for Young Readers and Page Street.

LxP: What do you wish you knew before getting into the industry?

(LC): This is a hard question because so much of the job is learned on the job, even with previous schooling / internships! Over the years, via various sources, I have heard the advice that to work in a marketing department you need to be an extrovert. Many things are probably easier if you are naturally a charismatic extrovert, but you can tend toward shyness (as I do) and still work in marketing. The reality is that you will likely have to publicly speak in some capacity in many of the departments within publishing (to the sales team / when pitching a book for acquisition / to your own team or full department) and it’s a skill you absolutely can learn! So don’t let that stop you from considering a position in marketing or publicity.

LxP: What book are you currently working on or reading?

(LC): I just finished reading What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez, which was swoony and fun – recommend if you enjoyed The Royal Diaries: Cleopatra VII, Daughter of the Nile as a kid. Now I am trying to decide between Starling House by Alix E. Harrow and Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison (which I’ve never read!). Very different vibes, lol, but both fit with the early Fall / back-to-school- season and I’ll likely go back and forth with both this month. 

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Lauren Cepero is a Publicity Manager for Kids & YA titles at Page Street. She has worked on campaigns for Woven in Moonlight by Isabel Ibañez, Damned If You Do by Alex Brown, The Gathering Dark anthology edited by Tori Bovalino, and more. Originally from Orlando, Florida, she earned her MA in Publishing & Writing from Emerson College  and currently resides in the Boston-area.