For whatever reason, I seem to have missed the boat on romance stories. Whenever my friends in high school were reading Sarah Dessen novels, I was reading Dickens. The closest I ever got to romance was reading Jane Eyre when I was 16, a novel I would later reject due to the problematic, abusive relationship between Jane and Rochester.
For August’s Women of the World book, I specifically wanted to find a Latina author. Last month, I realized that though I’d done a pretty good job of finding female authors from far away places, I hadn’t found any from countries closer to home. Given the continuing immigrant crisis at the US southern border, I figured it was about time that I put more energy into finding an author that would represent the voices that our country seems so ready to reject.