Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with us! Immerse yourself in the literary heritage of Hispanic authors and hear their stories come alive. Whether you’re in the mood for a contemporary romance or a cozy culinary mystery, these are fantastic additions to any TBR this month and beyond.
One Tough Cookie
By Delise Torres
Narrated by Stacy Gonzalez
Fans of Fleabag meets Crazy Ex-Girlfriend will love this humorous and heartfelt contemporary romance.
All cookies are made with love—even if twenty-seven-year-old Karina Cortés doesn’t believe in the concept. For her, a simple life with no attachments is a good life. And her life is indeed good—even with her biggest accomplishment being passing the GED exam. Karina is able to secure an incredible and well-paying job at Singular Cookies, Inc., a small family-owned cookie manufacturing plant in Fort Pierce, Florida. And although the founders of the company treat her like family, Karina insists she doesn’t need or want one. Not after her mother chose a man over her own daughter, pushing the young Karina to move out and make it on her own.
And she couldn’t be happier with her single life, unlike her friends, whose lives revolve around men.
Work and play collide when she meets the company’s hot new mechanic, Ian Feliciano, who stirs up feelings she tends to avoid. Karina knows she shouldn’t date him, but she’s strong; she’ll never turn pathetic like her friends or, especially, her mom. And with a looming plant inspection and trying to break up the CEO’s new romance, Karina has enough to distract herself.
As the inspection draws near and Karina battles her heart, she’ll have to decide whether to continue holding on to deeply ingrained beliefs that keep everyone at bay or learn that love is not as dangerous as she fears and that, in the end, it is our history—our singular recipe—that shapes how we live.
So Far From Gods
By Ana Castillo
Narrated by Frankie Corzo
In Tome, a small, seemingly sleepy New Mexico hamlet, Sofia and her four fated daughters reveal a world of marvels where the comic and horrific, past and present, real and fantastic coexist and collide.
Over two crowded decades, Sofia tries to hold things together following the disappearance of her husband, Domingo, he of the Clark Gable mustache and the uncontrollable gambling habit. Adventurous Esperanza, Chicana campus radical turned television news reporter, travels farthest from home only to be reeled back in spirit. Beautiful Caridad, a nurse who dulls the pain of being jilted with nightly bouts of alcohol and anonymous sex, finally finds love again―and a sharp drop off a tall cliff. Practical Fe, dutiful bank worker who wishes more than anything for stability, lets out a year-long primal scream upon being dumped by her fiancé. And mysterious La Loca, dies (maybe?) and is resurrected at age three, leaving her both attuned to higher spiritual frequencies and allergic to human touch.
Exuberant and powerful, funny and profound, So Far from God is “a hymn to the endurance of women, both physical and spiritual” (Washington Post Book World).
The Ghosts of Rancho Espanto
By Adrianna Cuevas
Narrated by Anthony Rey Perez
This contemporary middle-grade fantasy novel by a Pura Belpré Honor Award-winning author follows a Cuban American boy who’s sent to work on a ranch, where he’s confronted with a troubling supernatural mystery.
Rafa would rather live in the world of The Forgotten Age, his favorite role-playing game, than face his father’s increasing restrictions and his mother’s fading presence. But when Rafa and his friends decide to take the game out into the real world and steal their school cafeteria’s slushie machine, his dad concocts a punishment Rafa never could’ve imagined―a month working on a ranch in New Mexico, far away from his friends, their game, and his mom’s quesitos in Miami.
Life at Rancho Espanto isn’t as bad as Rafa initially expected, mostly due to Jennie, a new friend with similarly strong snack opinions, and Marcus, the veteran barn manager who’s not as gruff as he appears. But when Rafa’s work at the ranch is inexplicably sabotaged by a man who may not be what he seems, Rafa and Jennie explore what’s behind the strange events at Rancho Espanto―and discover that the greatest mystery may have been with Rafa all along.
When Trying to Return Home
By Jennifer Maritza McCauley
Narrated by Psalm Morant and Andréa Agosto
This debut collection of short stories “crackles with moments of honesty, upheaval, and longing among families” (Publishers Weekly) and spans a century of Black American and Afro-Latino life in Puerto Rico, Pittsburgh, Louisiana, Miami, and beyond.
Profoundly moving and powerful, the stories in this collection dig deeply into the question of belonging. A young woman is torn between overwhelming love for her mother and the need to break free from her damaging influence during a desperate and disastrous attempt to rescue her brother from foster care. A man, his wife, and his mistress each confront the borders separating love and hate, obligation and longing, on the eve of a flight to San Juan. A college student grapples with the space between chivalry and machismo in a tense encounter involving a nun. And in 1930s Louisiana, a woman attempting to find a place to call her own chances upon an old friend at a bar and must reckon with her troubled past.
Forming a web of desires and consequences that span generations, Jennifer Maritza McCauley’s Black American and Afro–Puerto Rican characters remind us that these voices have always been here, occupying the very center of American life—even if we haven’t always been willing to listen.
Mango, Mambo, and Murder
By Raquel V. Reyes
Narrated by Frankie Corzo
A Cuban-American cooking-show star becomes a seasoned sleuth in the first of the Caribbean Kitchen Mystery series.
Food anthropologist Miriam Quiñones-Smith’s move from New York to Coral Shores, Miami, puts her academic career on hold to stay at home with her young son. Adding to her funk is an opinionated mother-in-law and a husband rekindling a friendship with his ex. Gracias to her best friend, Alma, she gets a short-term job as a Caribbean cooking expert on a Spanish-language morning TV show. But when the newly minted star attends a Women’s Club luncheon, a socialite sitting at her table suddenly falls face-first into the chicken salad, never to nibble again.
When a second woman dies soon after, suspicions coalesce around a controversial Cuban herbalist, Dr. Fuentes—especially after the morning show’s host collapses while interviewing him. Detective Pullman is not happy to find Miriam at every turn. After he catches her breaking into the doctor’s apothecary, he enlists her help as eyes and ears to the places he can’t access, namely the Spanish-speaking community and the tawny Coral Shores social scene.
As the ingredients to the deadly scheme begin blending together, Miriam is on the verge of learning how and why the women died. But her snooping may turn out to be a recipe for her own murder.
Right Girl, Wrong Side
By Ginny Baird
Narrated by Karla Serrato
A multicultural story from a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author about two disputing families and the messiness that can come with love.
Busy flower shop manager Evita Machado can’t wait to get to Nantucket. With a bad breakup behind her, relaxing at the shore with her folks and her brothers and their families sounds like the sure cure for heartache, and their vacation destination looks like an amazing place! But when they arrive at the quaint rose-covered cottage, another group has already put down stakes: the Hatfields.
Ryan Hatfield was Evita’s former crush from high school, but their business rival moms refused to let them date. Now history professor Ryan is here for a week with his parents, who won them this oceanfront rental in a society silent auction. Once it’s clear there’s been a double-booking due to a bidding mistake, Ryan’s mom digs in her heels, meaning to stay. When Evita’s mom won’t back down either, both sides tepidly agree to share the luxury accommodations by dividing the cozy space.
With the boisterous Machados livening things up and the strait-laced Hatfields tamping them down, can Evita and Ryan keep the peace between the warring factions while fostering a growing chemistry between the two of them?
Leila, The Perfect Witch
By Flavia Z. Drago
Narrated by Marisa Blake
From the award-winning author of Gustavo, the Shy Ghost comes a charming tale of a witch who is spellbindingly good at everything discovers that baking is no piece of cake.
Leila Wayward is a little witch who excels at everything she does. She’s the fastest flier, the most cunning conjuror, and the most superb shape-shifter. She has won trophies for potions, herbology, and alchemy—and now she dreams of winning the Magnificent Witchy Cake-off! As the youngest in a long line of masters of the Dark Arts of Patisserie, Leila wants her entry to be perfect. But even with the most bewitching of recipes, she realizes a terrible truth: she’s a disaster in the kitchen. Luckily, Leila has three magical sisters who are happy to share their culinary secrets with her. What’s more, Leila discovers that baking with them is fun! Win or lose, she has already tasted the sweetest thing of all: acceptance—with a pinch of nightshade and a bit of mandrake.
Filled with expressive and fancifully offbeat illustrations, Flavia Z. Drago’s enchanting story of trying your hardest despite your imperfections is sure to delight little witches and novice bakers alike.
