In the title story of this collection, Isabela is minding her family’s restaurant, drinking her dad’s beer, when Frida Kahlo and the Virgen de Guadalupe walk in. Even though they’re dressed like cholas, the girl immediately recognizes Frida’s uni-brow and La Virgen’s crown. They want to give her advice about the quinceanera her parents are forcing on her. In fact, their lecture (don’t get pregnant, go to school, be proud of your indigenous roots) helps Isabela to escape her parents’ physical and sexual abuse. But can she really run away from the self-hatred they’ve created? These inter-related stories, mostly set in East Los Angeles, uncover the lives of a conflicted Mexican-American community. In “Sabado Gigante,” Bernardo drinks himself into a stupor every Saturday night. “Aqui no es mi tierra,” he cries, as he tries to ease the sorrow of a life lived far from home. Meanwhile, his son Gustavo struggles with his emerging gay identity and Maritza, the oldest daughter, is expected to cook and clean for her brother, even though they live in East LA, not Guadalajara or Chihuahua. In “Powder Puff,” Mireya spends hours every day applying her make-up, making sure to rub the foundation all the way down her neck so it looks like her natural color. But no matter how much she rubs and rubs, her skin is no lighter. Estella Gonzalez vividly captures her native East LA in these affecting stories about a marginalized people dealing with racism, machismo and poverty. In painful and sometimes humorous scenes, young people try to escape the traditional expectations of their family. Other characters struggle with anger and resentment, often finding innovative ways to exact revenge for slights both real and imagined. Throughout, music—traditional and contemporary—accompanies them in the search for love and acceptance.

In this “bold and dramatic portrayal of characters on the cusp of an impossible choice” (Publishers Weekly), two sisters from a wealthy Chinese-Indonesian family grapple with secrets and betrayal after one of them poisons their entire family. Gwendolyn and Estella have always been as close as sisters can be. Growing up in a wealthy, eminent, and sometimes deceitful family, they’ve relied on each other for support and confidence. But now Gwendolyn is lying in a coma, the sole survivor of Estella’s poisoning of their whole clan. As Gwendolyn struggles to regain consciousness, she desperately retraces her memories, trying to uncover the moment that led to this shocking act. Was it their aunt’s mysterious death at sea? Estella’s unhappy marriage to a dangerously brutish man? Or were the shifting loyalties and unspoken resentments at the heart of their opulent world too much to bear? Can Gwendolyn, at last, confront the carefully buried mysteries in their family’s past and the truth about who she and her sister really are? Traveling from the luxurious world of the rich and powerful in Indonesia to the most spectacular shows at Paris Fashion Week, from the sunny coasts of California to the melting pot of Melbourne’s university scene, The Majesties “is a thrilling, tender page-turner” (Krys Lee, author of Drifting House) as well as “a sobering look at the dark side of extreme wealth” (Kirkus Reviews).

"For the rest of the twelfth-century Europe, Spain was a far-off and exotic place, home to the holy site of Compostela, shrine of Saint James. The saint's tomb drew a perpetual wave of pilgrims, coming for adventure, or seeking a miracle from the saint. Pilgrimage is the story of one of those pilgrims. The last thing Gebirga of Flanders remembers seeing is the argument between her parents that ended in her mother's death. In the years since, she has learned to negotiate her family's castle of Gistel as a blind woman but everyone assumes that one day her home will be the convent founded in her mothers' honor. An accidental encounter offers another path, and Gebirga flees her callous family with a pack of pilgrims that includes a count's daughter bound for marriage, two clerics writing a guidebook, and a mysterious messenger with an unknown agenda, all headed along the pilgrimage road to Compostela. The journey takes Gebirga from her home on the edge of the North Sea across the kingdoms of France and into the Iberian Peninsula, where her mission to escort a young noblewoman becomes a dangerous adventure involving power-hungry kings and queens and even the Roman Pope. But can a blind woman navigate the shoals of international politics? To find a place where she can belong, Gebirga must learn there are other ways of seeing the truth than with her eyes."--Back cover.

Young and hustling, Roxie knew the business like the back of her hand. Growing up in a generational trend of gang-bangers and drug dealing, Roxie didn't have a choice but to follow in the footsteps as her ancestors. Trapped in the game and living in a world full of self-destruction, learning the rules of the streets became a second-hand notion after the arrest of her mother. Estella Dior takes you on an emotional roller coaster as she tells the story of her life through Roxie. Making major decisions that has her choosing life or death through the court systems and her baby father, Roxie must find a way to save her-self, her mother and an empire of drugs, money and people that she crossed on her way to the top. Combined with the feelings of Set It Off, Why Did I Get Married 2 and Sparkle, Estella Dior gives an outstanding delve into her life on new her path to glory and finding an unexpected love that will lead her life into new possibilities.

After witnessing a murder, high school senior Stella Gordon is sent to Nebraska for her own safety where she chafes at her protection, but when she meets Chet Falconer it becomes harder for her to keep her guard up, and soon she has to deal with the real threat to her life as her enemies are actually closer than she thinks.

‘Fascinating...I’ll never look at a rose in quite the same way again.’ Adrian Tinniswood The rose is bursting with meaning. Over the centuries it has come to represent love and sensuality, deceit, death and the mystical unknown. Today the rose enjoys unrivalled popularity across the globe, ever present at life’s seminal moments. Grown in the Middle East two thousand years ago for its pleasing scent and medicinal properties, it has become one of the most adored flowers across cultures, no longer selected by nature, but by us. The rose is well-versed at enchanting human hearts. From Shakespeare’s sonnets to Bulgaria’s Rose Valley to the thriving rose trade in Africa and the Far East, via museums, high fashion, Victorian England and Belle Epoque France, we meet an astonishing array of species and hybrids of remarkably different provenance. This is the story of a hardy, thorny flower and how, by beauty and charm, it came to seduce the world.