Book of the Month
WOMAN OF LIGHT
Author: Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Publisher: One World
ISBN-10: 0525511326 / ISBN-13: 978-0525511328
SUMMARY:
Luz “Little Light” Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is left to fend for herself after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer, and factory worker, is run out of town by a violent white mob. As Luz navigates 1930s Denver, she begins to have visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland in the nearby Lost Territory. Luz recollects her ancestors’ origins, how her family flourished, and how they were threatened. She bears witness to the sinister forces that have devastated her people and their homelands for generations. In the end, it is up to Luz to save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion.
About the Author:
Kali Fajardo-Anstine is the author of Sabrina & Corina, a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, The Story Prize, and winner of an American Book Award. She has written for The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, The American Scholar, Boston Review, and elsewhere, and has received fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and Tin House. Fajardo-Anstine holds an MFA from the University of Wyoming and has lived across the country, from Durango, Colorado, to Key West, Florida. She is the 2022–2023 Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University.
Website: https://www.kalifajardoanstine.com/
Facebook: @kalifajardoanstine
Instagram: @kalimaja
Photo credit: Tyler Everett
Conversations With Book
MURDER IN RED HOOK: A DAISY MUŇIZ MYSTERY
Author: Theresa Varela
Publisher: Pollen Press Publishing
ISBN: 1732716730 / ISBN-13: 978-1732716735 /
SUMMARY:
Daisy Muñiz is stunned by the murder of one of her closest friends in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Not only does she grapple with grief as she searches for the killer, her beau, Detective David Rodriguez, reveals secrets that her heart finds hard to accept. Daisy’s growing intuition and clairvoyance are jeopardized as everything she has believed in comes tumbling down. As Daisy takes steps to seek answers to a series of mishaps and treachery, she must learn how to trust herself and the people surrounding her.
About the Author:
Theresa Varela is an award-winning Nuyorican author with a PhD in Nursing Research and Theory Development from New York University. When she’s not writing Dr. Varela is working as a psychiatric nurse practitioner at a New York City shelter for persons living with severe mental illness. While engaged in the educational process, she realized that her true calling is as a novelist and poet. She was born in Brooklyn, New York and has lived there proudly all her life. Her published novels are: Murder in Red Hook: A Daisy Muñiz Mystery, Coney Island Siren, Nights of Indigo Blue: A Daisy Muñiz Mystery, Covering the Sun with My Hand, and Answered by Silence: a collection of poems.
Website: www.TheresaVarela.com
Facebook: @theresa.varela
Twitter: @theresa_varela
Instagram: @TheresaVarelaAuthor and @LatinaLibations
