First published 2022
Olga Acevedo plans lavish weddings for Manhattan's elite in 2017, but her own love life remains empty. Her brother Pedro serves as a congressman in Brooklyn, representing their rapidly changing neighborhood. Both siblings present polished public faces while struggling with private wounds. Their mother Blanca walked out twenty-seven years earlier, abandoning them to pursue radical politics after her time with the Young Lords. She left Olga and Pedro with their grandmother and never returned. Now Olga meets Matteo, who pushes her to examine buried family truths she has avoided. As Hurricane Maria devastates Puerto Rico, Blanca suddenly reappears in their lives like the storm itself. Olga must navigate her mother's return while questioning her own ambitions and identity. The hurricane forces all three family members to confront what they have built and what they have lost.
Genres: american-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-drama, prodigal-parent
Setting: Brooklyn, Manhattan, Puerto Rico
Period: 2017
369 pages · Hardcover · Flatiron Books
Content warnings: depression