They refer to themselves as “las Madres,” a close-knit group of women who, with their daughters, have created a family based on friendship and blood ties.Their story begins in Puerto Rico in 1975 when fifteen-year-old Luz, the tallest girl in her dance academy and the only Black one in a sea of petite, light-skinned, delicate swans, is seriously injured in a car accident. Tragically, her brilliant, multilingual scientist parents are both killed in the crash. Now orphaned, Luz navigates the pressures of adolescence and copes with the aftershock of a brain injury, when two new friends enter her life, Ada and Shirley. Luz’s days are consumed with aches and pains, and her memory of the accident is wiped clean, but she suffers spells that send her mind to times and places she can’t share with others.

In 2017, in the Bronx, Luz’s adult daughter, Marysol, wishes she better understood her. But how can she when her mother barely remembers her own life? To help, Ada and Shirley’s daughter, Graciela, suggests a vacation in Puerto Rico for the extended group, as an opportunity for Luz to unearth long-buried memories and for Marysol to learn more about her mother’s early life. But despite all their careful planning, two hurricanes, back-to-back, disrupt their homecoming, and a secret is revealed that blows their lives wide open.

 

Website: https://esmeraldasantiago.com/

 

Reinvention and redemption: One immigrant’s struggle for a better life.

Salvador arrives in the United States from Argentina with one big, unfocused goal, to become successful at something. He knows that America is the land of opportunity and if he works hard, he will triumph.

Together with his childhood sweetheart, he settles in the Big Apple where dreams come true.

But this ambitious young immigrant soon learns that it takes more than hard work and charisma to succeed and is changed by the harsh realities of living in New York.

Everyone has advice for Salvador as he moves from one dead-end job to another attempting to reinvent himself. But the best advice comes from the loving letters he gets from his father. They keep him grounded and remind him of the man he wants to be until he loses this moral compass the day his father succumbs to diabetes.

As the 1960s roll into the 1970s and America and Salvador become less innocent, he finds himself in California where he starts his own business, and it finally looks like the American Dream is within his grasp.

But things get complicated when Argentina is involved in a war in the early 1980s and Salvador must decide where his loyalties lie. One wrong decision and bold act can bring his dreams crumbling down, and Salvador learns that there are consequences for being impulsive.

In the end, Salvador learns that there are boundaries men should not cross and that the love of family is perhaps the only worthwhile dream Americans should pursue.

Spanning decades, Let Us Begin is a moving story filled with joy and despair about a family searching for a home and a place to belong.

 

Women’s Fiction author of Let Us Begin, This Is Now, That Was Then, Say You’ll Be Mine, and Evenings at the Argentine Club, Julia Amante writes emotionally rich stories about family, love, and the passion of chasing and achieving one’s goals.

Julia began her writing career in 2000, writing Latina romance under the pseudonym Lara Rios when Kensington Publishing released a new line of Latino romance books. These books reflected the flavor and rhythm of Latino communities in the U.S. and delivered richly textured commercial fiction about a population that had been mostly ignored by publishers at the time. Julia sold four romances to this publisher before moving on to write longer Chick Lit novels for Berkley Publishing by 2006. Her book Becoming Latina in 10 Easy Steps was optioned by Disney’s ABC Family to become a future TV series.

In 2009, Lara Rios became Julia Amante when she changed her writing style to reach a new audience. Amante wanted to expand her writing to include not only romantic relationships but the more complex bonds women have with parents, children, and friends. These novels continued to feature Latino characters and the cultural flavor of Hispanic life in America, but they also dealt with universal issues that appealed to women of all cultures.

Julia learned to value her roots and to be proud of her Latina heritage, as well as to be grateful for the life her parents built in the U.S. The beauty of America is that both cultures could be interwoven together, and Julia illustrates this in her novels. To her, being Latina is not separate from being American; her immigrant story is part of the great history of this country.

Julia’s other passion is education. She received her B.A. at the University of California, Riverside, and her M.F.A in Fiction from California State University, San Bernardino. She currently teaches writing at California State University, San Bernardino.

 

Website: https://www.juliaamante.com/

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