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Woman of Light
A Novel
Bookseller recommendation
“From the very beginning, I was completely captivated with this story. The book is told through a multi-generational storyline with the main focus on Luz "Little Light" Lopez. Luz is a tea leaf reader who is able to sense the future or "stories" of people. What I loved about this story is the vivid and descriptive scenes displayed throughout the book. It is heavily character based and each character's development was fully fleshed out. So much struggle, heartache, and pain was experienced through the years with the family but also so much love and happiness. I loved every minute of this beautiful and must-read book! ”
Nicole,
The Snail on the Wall
Summary
A dazzling epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West, from the author of the National Book Award finalist Sabrina & Corina
A Phenomenal Book Club Pick • “Sometimes you just step into a book and let it wash over you, like you’re swimming under a big, sparkling night sky.”—Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022—The Millions, Electric Lit, Lit Hub, Book Riot
There is one every generation, a seer who keeps the stories.
Luz “Little Light” Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is left to fend for herself after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer and factory worker, is run out of town by a violent white mob. As Luz navigates 1930s Denver, she begins to have visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland in the nearby Lost Territory. Luz recollects her ancestors’ origins, how her family flourished, and how they were threatened. She bears witness to the sinister forces that have devastated her people and their homelands for generations. In the end, it is up to Luz to save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion.
Written in Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s singular voice, the wildly entertaining and complex lives of the Lopez family fill the pages of this multigenerational western saga. Woman of Light is a transfixing novel about survival, family secrets, and love—filled with an unforgettable cast of characters, all of whom are just as special, memorable, and complicated as our beloved heroine, Luz.
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Reviews
“Fajardo-Anstine’s storytelling is absolutely engrossing.”—Shondaland“A transporting story of the importance of family history told in a luminescent style.”—Good Housekeeping
“An intimate and intensely moving story. Fajardo-Anstine’s lyrical, unpretentious prose renders the generations of women of this story in all of their complexity, offering a nuanced perspective on how the past can inform the future . . . Fajardo-Anstine . . . is a formidable, necessary voice in fiction.”—Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Malibu Rising
“This novel is indelible, and shines its big light on the Lopez family so brightly that I could draw a map of their breath. . . . An absolutely glorious novel.”—Emma Straub, author of All Adults Here
“Fajardo-Anstine brings to life in sensory-rich details . . . a lush, immersive historical novel.”—Kirkus Reviews
“An entrancing book about the stories we carry, the ones we need to keep telling. Fajardo-Anstine has given us another stunning cast of characters to root for.”—Lithub
“A novel with vast reach.”—Electric Lit
“Sometimes you just step into a book and let it wash over you, like you’re swimming under a big, sparkling night sky.”—Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You
“An unparalleled generational saga . . . one of the most potent voices in contemporary Latino and Native American literature.”—BeLatina
“A classic legendary Latinx story and a punch that says [Fajardo-Anstine] can square up with any contemporary writer. Quite literally . . . she can do it all.”—Lupita Reads
“Pure, simple, and luminescent . . . There are no other words to describe Fajardo-Anstine’s Woman of Light; a brilliant conflagration of a story that opens the eyes and inflames the heart.”—Craig Johnson, author of the Longmire series
“A cinematic, epic story. Kali Fajardo-Anstine brings her keen understanding of desire, vulnerability, and destiny to this gorgeous reclaiming of lost history.”—Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk
“With a single phrase, line of dialogue, description, Fajardo-Anstine has the power to accurately express the joy and sadness in a person’s life, their history, how the world comes into contact with us, and how we come into contact with the world. . . . Captivating.”—Mieko Kawakami, author of Breasts and Eggs
“A rare and wondrous kind of novel that assembles the universe from mere words, whose unforgettable characters haunt like long shadows in the southwestern light.”—Gary Shteyngart, author of Lake Success Expand reviews