Border child

"For Héctor and Lilia, pursuit of the American Dream became every parent's worst fear: their infant daughter vanished in the midst of their border crossing from Mexico to the United States. With great empathy and a keen awareness of current events, Michel Stone delivers a novel of surpassing sensitivity and heart. Years ago, young lovers Héctor and Lilia dreamed of a brighter future for their family in the United States. Héctor left Mexico first, to secure work and housing, but when Lilia, desperate to be with Héctor, impetuously crossed the border with their infant daughter, Alejandra, mother and child were separated, and Alejandra was never returned to her parents. Now, four years later, the family finally has a chance for reunion, but the damage wreaked by their traumatic separation may well be irreparable. After that disastrous border crossing, Héctor and Lilia lived and worked in South Carolina for several years before a misunderstanding with immigration officials forced their return to their sleepy hometown of Oaxaca, in Southern Mexico. Their perspectives permanently altered, the pair has at last achieved relative equilibrium, with a toddler son and another baby on the way, when they receive an unexpected tip that might lead them to Alejandra. Working increasingly illegal jobs to earn money for his journey north, Héctor goes in search of answers about his long-absent daughter. Meanwhile, in Héctor's absence, a bedridden Lilia awaits the birth of their third child, but cannot keep herself from reliving the worst mistakes of her past. In luminous, compassionate prose, Michel Stone renders a landscape of shifted expectations, a marriage put to an unimaginable test, and the consequences of wanting more for the next generation "--