About this item
Sixteen-year-old Martha and her mother move constantly, never staying anywhere for long. So she knows better than to ask if they've been evicted again when her mom says they re going on a "vacation" to meet the grandmother Martha didn't know existed. Laredo, Texas, is like no other city she has seen. Driving past businesses with Spanish names and colorfully painted houses with burnt lawns, Martha can't imagine her mother living somewhere so ... Mexican. At her grandmother's pink house, she's shocked and hurt when her mom abandons her, even though a part of her had been expecting it.Suddenly Martha must deal with a way of life that is completely foreign. Her grandmother doesn't speak English, so communication is difficult, and she's not the typical, sweet grandma who dotes on her grandchildren. Even weirder' it turns out that her grandmother is revered as a healer, or curandera. And there are tons of cousins, aunts and uncles all ready to embrace her!At her new school, Martha can't be anonymous like before because everyone knows she's Doa Gonzlez's granddaughter. Meanwhile, a girl who has it out for her makes things unpleasant. As Martha struggles to adjust to her new life, she can't help but wonder why her mother left Laredo. No one is willing to discuss it, so she'll have to unravel the secrets herself.
About the Author
Alex Temblador is the author of Secrets of the Casa Rosada, which has received awards like the 2019 NACCS Tejas Foco Young Adult Fiction, Middle Grade/ Young Adult Discovery Prize Winner of the 2018 Writers' League of Texas Book Awards, Texas Library Association's TAYSHAS, and Kirkus Reviews' Best of YA Books 2018. Alex received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Oklahoma and lives in Dallas, Texas, working as a freelance travel and culture writer. Her short stories have appeared in PALABRITAS, Cigale Literary Magazine, and Scissortale Review.
