Most Anticipated November 2024 Releases

November is the month stuck between the spooky and the jolly. It is the perfect transition to ease our way into the colder months, filling us with gratitude, hearty meals, and—of course—exciting book releases! Take a look at our most anticipated books for this month as you get ready for the most wonderful time of the year! Can you already feel the holiday spirit lurking around us?

Where the Library Hides by Isabel Ibañez

The long-awaited sequel of What the River Knows (2023) is finally here!

After leaving readers with an unexpected cliffhanger, Ibañez gives us the answers to our questions in Where the Library Hides. Set in 19th-century Egypt, the story follows Inez Olivera who is still recovering from her cousin Elvira’s murder and her mom’s betrayal. Although Tío Ricardo wants to send her back to Argentina to keep her safe, Inez won’t leave until she gets justice; however, the time and place she lives in will prove challenging. The law won’t let her access her inheritance unless she gets married, which gives Whitford Hayes—a secretive British former soldier—the idea to propose. But what is he planning?

The novel is a delicious mix of magic, adventure, mystery, humor, and romance. Ibañez lures the reader with her page-turning storytelling and compelling characters, making us question how far we are willing to go for our loyalty.

The Final Orchard by CJ Rivera

Staying on the parallel reality trope, CJ Rivera’s debut novel gives us a thrilling dystopian world where hope feels bleak.

In The Final Orchard, bionic enhancements drive the world. The novel tells the intertwined stories of geneticist Rosio Arata and 16-year-old Ever, but the two live very different lives. Rosio has a thriving career but is devastated after losing her daughter to an accident until she receives a call from someone who claims they can bring her back to life. It is then that she gets tangled in the secrets of her profession. On the other hand, Ever lives in a colony underground and is training to go to the Surface and fight the creatures harming the planet. What do the two have in common?

A terrifying tale about the consequences of greed, Rivera’s novel plays with reality and warns readers that not everything is what it seems.

Brown Girl, Brown Girl by Leslé Honoré. Illustrated by Cozbi A. Cabrera

Painting sparkles of hope are Leslé Honoré’s words next to Cozbi A. Cabrera’s illustrations, the perfect combination for an inspiring work.

A poem becomes a picture book in the heartwarming Brown Girl, Brown Girl, presenting a world where brown girls of all skin tones can shine brightly—a world that can easily be ours. The book follows verses that ask and answer questions addressed to those whose skin color shapes their lives. The repetition creates a rhythm that grasps readers and delivers the message effectively. The accompanying images by Cabrera are masterfully painted and provide scenes of brown girls playing and being happy despite their struggles.

Brown Girl, Brown Girl teaches readers the power of representation in media and how this can inspire young girls.

Women Surrounded by Water: A Memoir by Patricia Coral

To complete this list of powerful women characters, we must mention Patricia Coral’s heart-wrenching memoir.

The Puerto Rican author tells her story poetically, haunting readers with images of her and the island’s past and present. Coral’s narrative is as intimate as it is introspective, and it shows not only her reality but those of the women who survived the cultural restrictions that surrounded them. Readers follow her life as she marries and then separates from who was her first love, leaving Puerto Rico right before Hurricane Maria hits. The grief caused by exile, the longing for more in life, and the patriarchal expectations set upon women are among the many themes explored in this memoir.

Women Surrounded by Water is sure to make your heart hurt and flutter simultaneously. It honors women and Puerto Rico, and you might ask yourself if they could ever be truly free.

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Roxanna Cardenas Colmenares is a Venezuelan writer living in New York City who loves to consume, study, and create art. She explores multiple genres in her writing, with a special interest in horror and sci-fi, while working on her B.A. in English with a Creative Writing concentration. 

Her work has made her a two-time recipient of the James Tolan Student Writing Award for her critical essays analyzing movies. She has also won The Henry Roth Award in Fiction, The Esther Unger Poetry Prize, and The Allan Danzig Memorial Award in Victorian Literature.

In her free time, she likes to watch movies, dance, and draw doodles that she hopes to be brave enough to share one day.

Book Review: 'Sleeping with the Frenemy' by Natalie Caña

What they don’t tell you about reading romance novels is that some steamy scenes might catch you when you are in public—or at least that was my experience with Natalie Caña’s Sleeping with the Frenemy. Every time I rode the train, I would take out the book and read more about Leo and Sofi’s story. Inevitably, when things got hotter between them, my cheeks would blush as the other train passengers ignored the love my eyes were witnessing. It was my little secret: peeking into the two lovers’ journey to overcome what kept them apart.

Although the boiling, undeniable love between the two characters is the heart of this novel, Sleeping with the Frenemy goes beyond the sexual chemistry between Leo and Sofi. The story is also about forgiveness and rediscovering one’s purpose. Each character has healing ahead to do, especially when it comes to their families. Leo’s struggle growing up with a family who didn’t understand him and Sofi’s absent yet controlling father define their personalities and decision-making. Would they be capable of forgiving those who hurt them, including each other? With this, Caña does an excellent job in her narrative to show how important it is to prioritize one’s healing while reminding us that we are worthy of love despite how broken we are. In many ways, the couple mirrors each other: Sofi is stuck in a job she hates while Leo is stuck in his failed attempts to recover the job he loves. She wants out and he wants back in. Both are floating—or rather sinking—without course, yet they find an anchor in each other.

“The story is also about forgiveness and rediscovering one’s purpose.”

Furthermore, the exploration of gender-based stereotypes, the representation of queerness, and the conversation around body positivity are all present in Caña’s work. In many ways, the book shows stereotypical “macho-man” behavior in many male characters, but it doesn’t go unchallenged. The author contrasts it with the inversion of gender roles between the main couple, the representation of strong female characters and feminist men, and Leo’s ever-present vulnerability. Despite being a heterosexual love story, Caña effortlessly includes queer couples in the narrative, which provides a diversity of love to the story—a highly appreciated detail. Similarly, despite Leo and Sofi being described as good-looking, the latter suffers from insecurities around her slim figure yet finds beauty in the plus-size figure of another female character. With this, the author challenges stereotypical beliefs around body image and highlights how any woman could suffer from body dysmorphia no matter their size.

Still, let’s not forget that Leo and Sofi’s love is what makes this story shine. Leo’s complete devotion to the woman he believes is destined for him and Sofi’s refusal to admit her feelings is a dance I could watch all day. Packed with humor, romanticism, erotism, family dynamics, and trauma healing, Sleeping with the Frenemy is a joyful read that will warm your heart—and your cheeks. Read in public at your own risk!

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Roxanna Cardenas Colmenares is a Venezuelan writer living in New York City who loves to consume, study, and create art. She explores multiple genres in her writing, with a special interest in horror and sci-fi, while working on her B.A. in English with a Creative Writing concentration. 

Her work has made her a two-time recipient of the James Tolan Student Writing Award for her critical essays analyzing movies. She has also won The Henry Roth Award in Fiction, The Esther Unger Poetry Prize, and The Allan Danzig Memorial Award in Victorian Literature.

In her free time, she likes to watch movies, dance, and draw doodles that she hopes to be brave enough to share one day.

10 Spooky Books Written by Latinx Authors

The “season of the witch” is flying above us. There is no better time to grab your favorite spooky book while enjoying Halloween sweet treats—or tricks! Choose one or more of these books and see how Latinx authors portray the scary. Come and celebrate the obscure with us!

House of Bone and Rain by Gabino Iglesias

For childhood friends Gabe, Xavier, Tavo, Paul, and Bimbo, death has always been close. Hurricanes. Car accidents. Gang violence. Suicide. Estamos rodeados de fantasmas was Gabe’s grandmother’s refrain. We are surrounded by ghosts. But this time is different. Bimbo's mom has been shot dead. We’re gonna kill the guys who killed her Bimbo swears. And they all agree.

Feral with grief, Bimbo has become unrecognizable, taking no prisoners in his search for names. Soon, they learn Maria was gunned down by guys working for the drug kingpin of Puerto Rico. No one has ever gone up against him and survived. As the boys strategize, a storm gathers far from the coast. Hurricanes are known to carry evil spirits in their currents and bring them ashore, spirits which impose their own order.

Blurring the boundaries between myth, mysticism, and the grim realities of our world, House of Bone and Rain is a harrowing coming of age story; a doomed tale of devotion, the afterlife of violence, and what rolls in on the tide. 

Esi the Brave (Who Was Not Afraid of Anything) by Bernard Mensah|Illustrated by Raissa Figueroa

Esi is a brave Ghanaian girl who is not afraid of anything. Monsters and ghosts should be scared of her!

When she sets off for the annual Kakamotobi Festival with her parents, she’s confident she’ll be fine. Her mother warns that there’s going to be loud music and scary masks and a very big crowd, but Esi’s unconcerned. She’s not afraid of anything.

But when they get to the festival and her parents suddenly disappear in a crowd of terrifying monster masks, Esi realizes that to save her parents, she’ll have to be the bravest she’s ever been. With detail-packed illustrations and a text begging to be read aloud, this is the perfect story about finding your inner strength to be brave.

Fathomless by Samantha San Miguel

After months away at boarding school, Lulu Davenport was looking forward to summer vacation at her home on the southwest Florida coast, especially since her best friend, Algie Emsworth, will be spending his vacation with the Davenport family. But since his widowed mother has fallen on hard times, he’s gotten a job nearby that keeps him away from the house most of the day. And Frankie, Lulu’s sister and usual companion, is out of commission after injuring herself while sailing. But when Lulu hears about a possible haunting in a nearby abandoned fort and rumors of hidden treasure, she decides it’s time to strike out on her own and solve the mystery herself. In the process, she meets Vic, a blind boy who’s just moved to town, and the two of them embark on a hunt for clues about the ghostly appearances. Soon enough, Frankie and Algie join them, and the four friends uncover all sorts of very real dastardly deeds going on, and the villain is much closer to home than they expected!

The Trial of Anna Thalberg by Eduardo Sangarcía|Translated by Elizabeth Bryer

Anna Thalberg is a peasant woman shunned for her red hair and provocative beauty. When she is dragged from her home and accused of witchcraft, her neighbors do not intervene. Only Klaus, Anna’s husband, and Father Friedrich, a priest experiencing a crisis of faith, set out to the city of Würzburg to prove her innocence. There, Anna faces isolation and torture inside the prison tower, while the populace grows anxious over strange happenings within the city walls. Can Klaus and Friedrich convince the church to release Anna, or will she burn at the stake?

Set in the Holy Roman Empire during the Protestant Reformation, The Trial of Anna Thalberg is a story of religious persecution, superstition, and human suffering. While exploring the medieval fear of witches and demons, it delves into enduring human concerns: the historical oppression of women, the inhumanity of institutions, and the question of God’s existence. Frantic in pace and experimental in form, this novel is an unforgettable debut from Mexican author Eduardo Sangarcía.

A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez|Translated by Megan McDowell

On the shores of this river, all the birds that fly, drink, perch on branches, and disturb siestas with the demonic squawking of the possessed—all those birds were once women.

Welcome to Argentina and the fascinating, frightening, fantastical imagination of Mariana Enriquez. In twelve spellbinding new stories, Enriquez writes about ordinary people, especially women, whose lives turn inside out when they encounter terror, the surreal, and the supernatural. A neighborhood nuisanced by ghosts, a family whose faces melt away, a faded hotel haunted by a girl who dissolved in the water tank on the roof, a riverbank populated by birds that used to be women—these and other tales illuminate the shadows of contemporary life, where the line between good and evil no longer exists.

Lyrical and hypnotic, heart-stopping and deeply moving, Enriquez’s stories never fail to enthrall, entertain, and leave us shaken. Translated by the award-winning Megan McDowell, A Sunny Place for Shady People showcases Enriquez’s unique blend of the literary and the horrific, and underscores why Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, calls her “the most exciting discovery I’ve made in fiction for some time.”

The No-Brainer's Guide to Decomposition by Adrianna Cuevas

No one has ever called Frani Gonzalez squeamish. Seriously, whether it’s guts (no big deal), bugs (move aside, she’s got this), or anything else that you might find at the Central Texas Forensic Anthropology Research Facility, to her and her dad, the university’s body farm is just home.

Having bodies buried in her backyard doesn’t exactly make Frani the most popular kid in school, and the imaginary spider that lives in a web in her brain isn’t helping either. Arañita’s always to blame for the distracted thoughts weaving through Frani’s mind. But when a hand reaches out of the ground and grabs her ankle, Frani realizes that she’s got bigger problems.

Not everything is as it seems at the body farm, and now Frani must help the teenage zombie that crawled out of the dirt…before he gets too hungry. But as more and more zombies begin to appear—and they seem to get less and less friendly—can Frani embrace the true nature of her brain and count on new friendships to solve the body farm's mystery before it's overrun with the undead?

Tiny Threads by Lilliam Rivera

Fashion-obsessed Samara finally has the life she’s always dreamed of: A high-powered job with legendary designer Antonio Mota. A new home in sunny California, far away from those drab Jersey winters. And an intriguing love interest, Brandon, a wealthy investor in Mota’s fashion line.
 
But it’s not long before Samara’s dream life begins to turn into a living nightmare as Mota’s big fashion show approaches and the pressure on her turns crushing. Perhaps that’s why she begins hearing voices in her room at night—and seeing strange things that can’t be explained away by stress or anxiety or the number of drinks she’s been consuming.
 
And it may not be just Samara imagining things as her psyche unravels, because she soon discovers hints that her new city—and the House of Mota—may be built on a foundation of secrets and lies. Now Samara must uncover what hideous truths lurk in the shadows of this illusory world of glamour and beauty before those shadows claim her.

Jasmine Is Haunted by Mark Oshiro

Jasmine Garza has a problem: a ghost has been following her for years, ever since her Papi died. Not that Mami will admit anything supernatural is going on. But even the ghost she won’t acknowledge makes real trouble, so Jasmine and her mami are moving (again) to a new apartment in East Hollywood. This time Jasmine is committed to living a normal life with normal friends.

Enter: Bea Veracruz and Jorge Barrera. They’re the only two members of Jasmine's middle school's Gay Straight Alliance and they’re already obsessed with all things supernatural. Bea wants to prove herself to her paranormal investigator parents and Jorge is determined to overcome his fear of the beyond. And when Jasmine confesses she’s been tormented by a ghost for years, they not only believe her, they’re thrilled!

Together they set out to prove that Jasmine’s not just acting out after her father’s death–ghosts are real and Jasmine is haunted. But not everyone agrees how to deal with the departed. As Jasmine’s hauntings increase in intensity, her resentment builds. Why is her Mami so secretive about her past? Why is she the center of such a terrible vortex of supernatural activity? And why hasn’t her Papi ever reached out to her since he passed?

In order to face her ghosts—both internal and external—Jasmine must come to terms with her own history.

Clean by Alia Trabucco Zerán|Translated by Sophie Hughes

A young girl has died and the family’s maid is being interrogated. She must tell the whole story before arriving at the girl’s death.

Estela came from the countryside, leaving her mother behind, to work for the señor and señora when their only child was born. They wanted a housemaid: “smart appearance, full time,” their ad said. She wanted to make enough money to support her mother and return home. For seven years, Estela cleaned their laundry, wiped their floors, made their meals, kept their secrets, witnessed their fights and frictions, raised their daughter. She heard the rats scrabbling in the ceiling, saw the looks the señor gave the señora; she knew about the poison in the cabinet, the gun, the daughter’s rebellion as she grew up, the mother’s coldness, the father’s distance. She saw it all.

After a series of shocking betrayals and revelations, Estela stops speaking, breaking her silence only now, to tell the story of how it all fell apart. Is this a story of revenge or a confession? Class warfare or a cautionary tale? Building tension with every page, Clean is a gripping, incisive exploration of power, domesticity, and betrayal from an international star at the height of her powers.

¡Celebremos el Día de las Brujas y el Día de los Muertos! / Let’s Celebrate Halloween and the Day of the Dead! by Gustavo Ruffino|Illustrated by Olga Barinova

Two best friends enjoy dressing up for their Halloween party at school; Mía is a monarch butterfly and Camila is a leaping frog!  The girls live in the same building so Camila goes home with Mía after school and eats dinner with her family. But when they invite Camila to help set up their Day of the Dead altar, she is afraid of the skulls.

Mía teaches her friend that the altar is a way to remember and honor loved ones who have passed. “It’s like a party,” she says. Decorated with flowers, photos and the departed person’s favorite things, it’s full of beautiful memories. Camila wonders if she can prepare one for her mother­—whom she misses terribly—even though she is Colombian and not Mexican. Camila’s father likes the idea and helps his daughter make her mom’s favorite food, arepas with lots of cheese, to put on the altar and share with Mía’s family at dinner the next night.

This bilingual picture book for children ages 5-9 illustrated in festive fall colors warmly depicts the love of lost family members—even four-legged ones—and the Mexican indigenous tradition of the Day of the Dead / El Día de los Muertos. Immigrant kids in particular will relate to celebrating holidays from both their home and mainstream cultures.

Roxanna Cardenas Colmenares is a Venezuelan writer living in New York City who loves to consume, study, and create art. She explores multiple genres in her writing, with a special interest in horror and sci-fi, while working on her B.A. in English with a Creative Writing concentration. 

Her work has made her a two-time recipient of the James Tolan Student Writing Award for her critical essays analyzing movies. She has also won The Henry Roth Award in Fiction, The Esther Unger Poetry Prize, and The Allan Danzig Memorial Award in Victorian Literature.

In her free time, she likes to watch movies, dance, and draw doodles that she hopes to be brave enough to share one day.

Author Q&A: ‘Libertad’ by Bessie Flores Zaldívar

Bessie Flores Zaldívar immediately places the readers in Libertad’s setting with the opening lines: “This fucking city,” and traps us in an overcrowded car along with the characters. The night is hot and loud, and Libertad and her friends have a party to go to. However, they are stopped by a cop and must bribe him if they don’t want to end up in jail. Libi, as her loved ones call her, is stuck under the pressure of her best friend Camila’s weight and vanilla smell as they wait for the driver to deal with the corrupted officer. 

They finally arrive at La Esquina, the bar where Libi and her friends usually go despite being underage, and the party begins. They dance and drink for hours, and suddenly Libertad and Camila can’t find the rest of the group in the crowd. When two older men try to dance with them, Camila pulls her friend inside the bathroom. Libertad’s mind is all over the place because she is drunk, but she comes back to the present when Camila’s lips touch hers. As the kiss intensifies, outside is Maynor, Libi’s older brother, looking for her desperately. The cops are in La Esquina looking for minors. When he gets to the bathroom door and interrupts the two best friends, will Libi be relieved that Maynor found them before the cops? Or will she wish he never knocked? 

In the prologue of their novel, Flores Zaldívar lets us know Libertad is about two things that are, as the author says, “inextricable from each other”: queerness and Honduras. They place us right next to Libi and we follow along as she discovers key things about herself and her country. The readers accompany Libertad through a year of growth where she must face hardships no 17-year-old should, but many do—especially queer Latin-American youth. 

Libertad inevitably becomes important to the reader and everything she experiences—Honduras’s hot summers, siblings love, mother-daughter arguments, grief, injustice—feels tangible. Each chapter is a page-turner, and readers eagerly follow Libi’s both painful and healing journey. 

Flores Zaldívar spoke with Latinx in Publishing about the process of writing Libertad.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Roxanna Cardenas Colmenares (RCC): Congratulations on your debut novel Libertad, Bessie! With your book being about growth and overcoming adversity, can you tell me about yourself in your early twenties writing this story? Did younger Bessie ever imagine this moment you are experiencing now?

Bessie Flores Zaldívar (BFZ): I started writing this novel in my second year of college when I was 20. I wrote a lot of it but only used the first three chapters to apply to the MFA, and this was my thesis at the end of it. When I finished the first full draft, I was 24 years old. Toni Morrison said that she wrote her first novel because she wanted to read a book like that and couldn’t find it anywhere. I think that is very much so why I wrote Libertad because I wanted to read a queer YA novel about a Honduran person, and I wanted it to engage with the political context. I also really wanted to see a family like mine depicted, and the family in this book is almost exactly like mine. So, this was the book I needed to write before anything else. In some ways that made it very easy, but in others, that made it very hard. Still, the book came to me very gracefully, like a gift. 

RCC: As an older sister, one of my favorite things about this book was the relationship between Libertad and her brothers. The bond between her and Maynor is key to this story, and you write it from the perspective of a younger sibling despite you being the oldest one in your family. Why did you choose to write from the point of view of a middle child and how did your own experience as an oldest sibling help you write this dynamic between Libi, Maynor, and Alberto? 

BFZ: Great question! The plot reason Libertad is a middle child is that I needed Maynor to be a student activist, and for that to be true, he needed to be of college age, which means he had to be older than Libi. Beyond that, queer young adults felt to me like a good place to grieve. I was telling my siblings that, as a queer person, when I came out in high school, I was the only person who was out, so a lot of it was that I wanted to reimagine what my youth could’ve been like if I had an older sibling, how that could’ve changed things for me. 

I love being an older sibling. I feel truly so lucky and blessed, but I also have always wondered what that could have been like for me, having someone who I really trusted and looked up to tell me it would be okay. How braver would I have been? I think that was key to my decision. Also, a lot of the grief depicted in the book comes from the things Maynor knows that Libertad doesn’t get to know and that we get to see from the chapters that I wrote from his perspective. 

Writing the dynamic was probably the easiest part. I would say it is a direct replica of the one I have with my siblings. 

RCC: Honduras is another character in this story. The book can’t exist without Honduras in the background. Tell me how it was to recall the quirks and corners of your home country while writing Libertad, especially from outside of it. 

BFZ: It was like being haunted. Especially because I was writing a Honduras I remembered living in but that wasn’t there anymore, and when I got to go home, things were different. La Esquina, the bar in the first three chapters, is the same one I would go to when I was in high school, and now it’s a Puerto Rican restaurant. It felt like I was trying to remember something that had become a ghost because my country is changing and there is nothing I can do about that since I’m the one who left. I’m the one who remembers it differently. In some ways, it was really pleasurable to process that grief of Honduras never being mine in the same way that it was before I left… I love Honduras, and what “Honduras” means to me is the people who live in that land. 

RCC: Your book also depicts the experience of closeted queers and, more specifically, the consequences of being outed. At the same time, the story takes place in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, an environment that was especially dangerous to queer youth at the time. How was it for you to write those painful moments Libertad had to face regarding her sexuality? What did you wish to tell young queer people with them, to both those who live in settings like Libi does and those who don’t? 

BFZ: I’ve been thinking about that a little bit because I knew I was queer pretty much as soon as I knew who I was, as soon as I understood myself, and I never really felt shame about it, even though I did grow up in such a homophobic country and society…When people come out, moms tend to say things like: “Your life is going to be hard,” which is what my mom said to me, along with “I don’t want your life to be harder than it needs to be. We already live in this country, you’re already a woman in this country. Why does it have to be any harder?” I never had a good answer for that until maybe two weeks ago. I realized that what I wanted to say in response was that my life would be harder, but I was raised by two very strong women. I saw my mom survive the same stuff Libertad’s mom did, so how could I not be strong enough to face what was coming? And I have been. 

A friend told me that when we ask God–or whatever we believe in–She doesn’t give us a little bottle of “Liquid Bravery;” you are just put in a situation where you can choose to be brave. That is what I wanted to put across to young readers, that being brave is just deciding to be so. I know there are issues to consider, such as safety, and the United States is not immune to this, but I now feel like the novel helped me find an answer to that moment in my life. Yes, my life will be harder, and I’ll have to be strong because it is more important to live my life authentically than to make it easier by shrinking myself. I’m so queer, so out, so happy… It was worth it. How could it not be? 

“I saw my mom survive the same stuff Libertad’s mom did, so how could I not be strong enough to face what was coming?”

RCC: You made interesting choices in your novel like having little sections with a change of the narrator’s point of view that added more details to the story beyond Libertad’s awareness, yet the most notorious one for me was the use of Spanish throughout the novel, more specifically when it comes to Libertad’s poems. Why did you choose to keep her poetry in Spanish and add the translations to the back of the book?

BFZ: You are going to love this. It almost sounds made up, but all the poems in the book were written in Spanish by me and my brother. They were written before the book was. Those are old poems that we wrote when I was 19, which means that [my brother] was 17. We wrote them together as those specific moments in time [mentioned in LIBERTAD] were happening, and I just copied and pasted them into the book–I might have edited them a little bit. Therefore, I made that choice because the poems were written before the book, and it didn’t feel good to translate them… Ultimately, I think I just kept them in Spanish and the way they are because I wanted Emo, my brother, to get to read his work in my book. A lot of it is his and not mine, more rhymes are his than mine, and in many ways this book is a love letter to my brother and sister. 

RCC: In the same topic of choices, you could have chosen to tell a story focusing either on queerness or Honduran politics, but instead, you connected the two. Why was the depiction of this correlation so important? 

BFZ: The best answer for that is that I didn’t get to choose what affected me. I had to be affected by Honduran politics and be queer at the same time. They are also inextricable from each other. When the coup happened in 2009, I was twelve, and power got cut and there was all this military presence in the country, and we couldn’t go to school. I didn’t understand what was going on. Years later, when I was investigating it, I found out that a lot of people were killed that night, especially queer people, and what was found on the scene were military bullets that civilians don’t have access to… It wasn’t reported on the news. We’re talking about queer sex workers who got killed that night. I already knew the state wasn’t interested in protecting my livelihood as a person, but [this discovery] made me feel aware of how my queerness made me especially vulnerable to that truth. 

RCC: One more choice you made that I’m very curious about is your author’s letter at the end of the book. Why did you decide to write it? 

BFZ: I love that you’re asking me about this!... I didn’t want a book that gave a very simplistic answer about Honduran politics, and I don’t think the book does. But in my author’s note, I wanted to acknowledge that my reality is very different from Libertad’s now. I got to grow up, move somewhere else, and I know what being openly queer feels like, which she doesn’t. Also, there has been a change in power in Honduras since the end of that book… We had this historic election with the most participation ever, we elected the first woman president, and she’s from the left, but the next day, people still lived in the same conditions. One year later, people are still living in the same conditions. I really wanted to tell the reader that history did move past this, and it has meant something, but it also has meant nothing in other ways. The things that are true at the end of the book are still true today.

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Born in 1997 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Bessie Flores Zaldívar is a writer and professor of fiction. They’re currently based in the New Haven area. Libertad is Bessie’s debut novel.

Roxanna Cardenas Colmenares is a Venezuelan writer living in New York City who loves to consume, study, and create art. She explores multiple genres in her writing, with a special interest in horror and sci-fi, while working on her B.A. in English with a Creative Writing concentration. 

Her work has made her a two-time recipient of the James Tolan Student Writing Award for her critical essays analyzing movies. She has also won The Henry Roth Award in Fiction, The Esther Unger Poetry Prize, and The Allan Danzig Memorial Award in Victorian Literature.

In her free time, she likes to watch movies, dance, and draw doodles that she hopes to be brave enough to share one day.

Most Anticipated October 2024 Releases

As the leaves start changing into warm colors, the weather gets colder. The chill temperatures make you want to grab a thick blanket to wrap yourself in and a good book to read while enjoying a warm drink. To help you make your Autumn fantasies real, check out our most anticipated releases. They are sure to keep you cozy, warm, or spooked! 

Sleeping with the Frenemy by Natalie Caña

Speaking about staying warm, Caña brings us the third romance of the Vega Family Love Stories with the much-anticipated secret relationship between Leo Vega and Sofi Santana—and what a steamy pair they are!

Leo and Sofi’s relationship has been on and off for a while but after a big fight between Sofi and her best friend, Leo’s sister, they split up for over a year. Despite Leo getting badly injured, Sofi keeps the distance between them as she lives her life on her terms—or so she thinks. When she returns from her stay in Paris, the ice forming around them starts melting immediately, proving their undeniable feelings for each other. However, not everything in this story is about love. Sofi and Leo have a lot of healing ahead of them if they want their relationship to work. The book is about forgiveness and discovering one’s purpose even after years of thinking you had one already. 

The Witches of El Paso by Luis Jaramillo

While the title reveals the magical element and setting, Jaramillo’s novel has much more to unpack. 

In 1943, Elena Eduviges Montoya, best known as “Nena,” lives a life that is not her own. She is a teenager taking care of her older sister’s children while haunted by visions of her future. One night, Sister Benedicta de la Cruz appears and takes Nena to 1792 where she joins a convent and learns about her powers. In the present day, after an ironic turn of events, Marta struggles with her career and motherhood while caring for her great aunt, who is ninety-three-year-old Nena. With her great-niece’s powers awakened, Nena can’t keep hiding the secret of her time-traveling and her long-lost daughter. 

Charged with magical realism, The Witches of El Paso explores complex female relationships and the consequences of family secrets. It is a book that you won’t want to put down.

Solis by Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher

Mendoza and Sher’s YA novel will surely spook you out—just not as you would expect it. 

The story takes place in a scary, not-so-futuristic America where undocumented people are forced into labor camps. In this horrific scenario, four women meet. They are all different ages and backgrounds, but they have one thing in common: they are tired of their exploitation. Therefore, they join the resistance group SOLIS to stop the government’s cruelty—or die trying. 

The novel is terrifying because it shows a speculative world that is not so unthinkable. The exploitation of immigrants, land, and resources is all too familiar. The narrative is graphic and violent, enhancing how horrifying yet necessary it is to think about the future of our society.

Ghost Brother by Sylvia Sánchez Garza

For the rainy days to come, a cup of chocolate caliente and a book about grief make the perfect medicine. 

Sánchez Garza’s YA novel explores the way families react to loss, especially when facing the death of a young person. After a fatal car accident caused by a pair of bullies, Cris loses his twin brother, Carlos; however, the connection between the siblings won’t break that easily. The story develops from both twins’ perspectives, as Cris navigates his grief while Carlos’s ghost roams without anyone noticing him. Eventually, the brothers’ realities get even more complicated when one falls in love with a girl who knows details about the accident and the other overhears revealing conversations. 

Ghost Brother will warm your heart with its exploration of sorrow as life moves on for Cris, while Carlos remains stuck between realms. 

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Roxanna Cardenas Colmenares is a Venezuelan writer living in New York City who loves to consume, study, and create art. She explores multiple genres in her writing, with a special interest in horror and sci-fi, while working on her B.A. in English with a Creative Writing concentration. 

Her work has made her a two-time recipient of the James Tolan Student Writing Award for her critical essays analyzing movies. She has also won The Henry Roth Award in Fiction, The Esther Unger Poetry Prize, and The Allan Danzig Memorial Award in Victorian Literature.

In her free time, she likes to watch movies, dance, and draw doodles that she hopes to be brave enough to share one day.