Five For Friday: Five Books By Latinx Authors To Read During Hispanic Hertiage Month

 Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated September 15 through October 15th so we wanted to highlight some great books that were released recently written by Latinx authors so you can get one or two in before it is over with.

The month focuses on the history, culture, and contributions of the Hispanic people.The observation started in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week under President Lyndon Johnson and was expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover a 30-day period starting on September 15 and ending on October 15. It was enacted into law on August 17, 1988, on the approval of Public Law 100-402.

The day of September 15 is significant because it is the anniversary of independence for Latin American countries Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence days on September 16 and September18, respectively. Also, Columbus Day or Día de la Raza, which is October 12, falls within this 30 day period.

The Grimrose Girls by Laura Pohl

Paperback, 384 pages

Expected publication: October 26th 2021 by Sourcebooks Fire

SUMMARY:

After the mysterious death of their best friend, Ella, Yuki, and Rory are the talk of their elite school, Grimrose Académie. The police ruled it a suicide, but the trio is determined to find out what really happened.

When Nani Eszes arrives as their newest roommate, it sets into motion a series of events they couldn't have imagined. As the girls retrace their friend's last steps, they uncover dark secrets about themselves and their destinies, discovering they're all cursed to repeat the brutal and gruesome endings to their stories until they can break the cycle.

This contemporary take on classic fairytales reimagines heroines as friends attending the same school. While investigating the murder of their best friend, they uncover connections to their ancient fairytale curses and attempt to forge their own fate before it's too late. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Laura Pohl was born in Braunschweig, Germany to Brazilian parents who love to travel. She has spent most of her life in Curitiba, Brazil, moved to live on the other side of the world in Sydney, Australia, and currently resides in São Paulo.

OF WOMEN AND SALT BY GABRIELA GARCIA

Hardcover, 207 pages

Published March 30th 2021 by Flatiron Books

SUMMARY:

In present-day Miami, Jeanette is battling addiction. Daughter of Carmen, a Cuban immigrant, she is determined to learn more about her family history from her reticent mother and makes the snap decision to take in the daughter of a neighbor detained by ICE. Carmen, still wrestling with the trauma of displacement, must process her difficult relationship with her own mother while trying to raise a wayward Jeanette. Steadfast in her quest for understanding, Jeanette travels to Cuba to see her grandmother and reckon with secrets from the past destined to erupt.

From 19th-century cigar factories to present-day detention centers, from Cuba to Mexico, Gabriela Garcia's Of Women and Salt is a kaleidoscopic portrait of betrayals--personal and political, self-inflicted and those done by others--that have shaped the lives of these extraordinary women. A haunting meditation on the choices of mothers, the legacy of the memories they carry, and the tenacity of women who choose to tell their stories despite those who wish to silence them, this is more than a diaspora story; it is a story of America's most tangled, honest, human roots

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Gabriela Garcia is the author of the novel Of Women and Salt, a New York Times bestseller and Editors' Choice. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award and a Steinbeck Fellowship from San Jose State University. 

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN CUBA BY CHANEL CLEETON

Hardcover, 367 pages

Published May 4th 2021 by Berkley

SUMMARY:

A feud rages in Gilded Age New York City between newspaper tycoons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. When Grace Harrington lands a job at Hearst’s newspaper in 1896, she’s caught in a cutthroat world where one scoop can make or break your career, but it’s a story emerging from Cuba that changes her life.

Unjustly imprisoned in a notorious Havana women’s jail, eighteen-year-old Evangelina Cisneros dreams of a Cuba free from Spanish oppression. When Hearst learns of her plight and splashes her image on the front page of his paper, proclaiming her, “The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba,” she becomes a rallying cry for American intervention in the battle for Cuban independence. 

With the help of Marina Perez, a courier secretly working for the Cuban revolutionaries in Havana, Grace and Hearst’s staff attempt to free Evangelina. But when Cuban civilians are forced into reconcentration camps and the explosion of the USS Maine propels the United States and Spain toward war, the three women must risk everything in their fight for freedom

( I haven't read this book yet, but I have read several of her others and they were all great especially if you love Historical Fiction )

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Originally from Florida, Chanel Cleeton grew up on stories of her family's exodus from Cuba following the events of the Cuban Revolution. 

ALOT LIKE ADIOS BY ALEXIS DARIA

Paperback, 416 pages

Published September 14th 2021 by William Morrow Paperbacks

SUMMARY:

After burning out in her corporate marketing career, Michelle Amato has built a thriving freelance business as a graphic designer. So what if her love life is nonexistent? She’s perfectly fine being the black sheep of her marriage-obsessed Puerto Rican-Italian family. Besides, the only guy who ever made her want happily-ever-after disappeared thirteen years ago.
It’s been a long time.
Gabriel Aguilar left the Bronx at eighteen to escape his parents’ demanding expectations, but it also meant saying goodbye to Michelle, his best friend and longtime crush. Now, he’s the successful co-owner of LA’s hottest celebrity gym, with an investor who insists on opening a New York City location. It’s the last place Gabe wants to go, but when Michelle is unexpectedly brought on board to spearhead the new marketing campaign, everything Gabe’s been running from catches up with him.
I’ve missed you.
Michelle is torn between holding Gabe at arm’s length or picking up right where they left off—in her bed. As they work on the campaign, old feelings resurface, and their reunion takes a sexy turn. Facing mounting pressure from their families—who think they’re dating—and growing uncertainty about their futures, can they resolve their past mistakes, or is it only a matter of time before Gabe says adiós again

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexis Daria writes stories about successful Latinx characters and their (occasionally messy) familias. You Had Me at Hola, the first book in her Primas of Power series, is a national bestseller. 

INDIVISIBLE BY DANIEL ALEMAN

Hardcover, 400 pages

Published May 4th 2021 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

SUMMARY:

There is a word Mateo Garcia and his younger sister Sophie have been taught to fear for as long as they can remember: deportation. Over the past few years, however, the fear that their undocumented immigrant parents could be sent back to Mexico has started to fade to the back of their minds. And why wouldn't it, when their Ma and Pa have been in the United States for so long, they have American-born children, and they're hard workers and good neighbors?

When two ICE agents come asking for Pa, the Garcia family realizes that the lives they've built are about to come crumbling down. And when Mateo returns from school one day to find that his parents have been taken, he'll have to come to terms with the fact that his family's worst nightmare has become a reality.

With his Ma and Pa being held in separate detention centers, Mateo must learn how to look after his sister and himself. The choices Mateo makes, and the people he turns to for help, might reunite his family… or tear them apart for good. With his parents’ fate and his own future hanging in the balance, Mateo must figure out who he is and what he is capable of, even as he’s forced to question what it means to be an American teenager in a country that rejects his own mom and dad.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Daniel Aleman was born and raised in Mexico City. A graduate of McGill University, he currently lives in Toronto. INDIVISIBLE is his first novel.

DROP US A COMMENT AND LET US KNOW IF YOU HAVE READ ANY OF THERE OR IF THERE IS SOMETHING WE SHOULD BE READING AND MISSED!