Told through the points of view of the four Garcia sisters -- Carla, Sandi, Yolanda and Sofia -- daughters of a wealthy family exiled after a failed coup, and how they come of age, weathering the cultural and class transitions from privileged Dominicans to New York Hispanic immigrants. 

 

by Joseph Boyden

This novel sits at the confluence of three civilizations in seventeenth-century Ontario. The narration alternates among Bird, a Wendat (Huron) warrior; Snow Falls, the young Iroquois captive he adopts after killing her family to avenge his wife and daughters; and Pere Christophe, a thoughtfully intelligent, multilingual Jesuit missionary.

 

by Patrick Chamoiseau

A gripping, profoundly unsettling story of an elderly slave's daring escape into the wild from a plantation, with his master and a fearsome hound on his heels.

 

 

 

by Edwidge Danticat

Claire's mother died in childbirth, and on the evening of her seventh birthday in 2009, her father, Nozias, a poor fisherman, agrees to give her to Madame Galle, an affluent fabric vendor whose own daughter died three years earlier in a traffic accident.

 

by Esi Edugyan

The year 1830 finds 12-year-old George Washington (Wash) Black enslaved on a sugar plantation. His life changes dramatically when his sadistic master's younger brother, Titch, chooses him to assist with Titch's scientific experiments.

 

by Carlos Fuentes

Vlad really is undead: dispossessed after centuries of mayhem by Eastern European wars and rampant blood shortages.  So, where is a modern-day vampire to roost? Why not Mexico City, populated by ten million blood sausages (that is, people), and a police force who won't mind a few disappearances? 

 

by Rómulo Gallegos
 

Dona Barbara is a beautiful and mysterious woman -- rumored to be a witch -- with a ferocious power over men. When her cousin Santos Luzardo returns to the plains in order to reclaim his land and cattle, he reluctantly faces off against Dona Barbara, and their battle becomes simultaneously one of violence and seduction.

 

by Cristina García

Fidel Castro contemplates his legacy at the end of his life while a disgruntled Cuban expat plots to hurry that end along. 

 

by Cristina Henríquez

The heat is debilitating, life is precarious, and relationships are skewed. Fathers are absent, dangerous, or depressed. Young women scramble to hold on to crummy jobs and unreliable lovers. People have trouble expressing their feelings, and political unrest is driving everyone crazy.

 

by Oscar Hijuelos

IMaria enchants whether she's dancing in clubs, appearing in advertisements, or walking the sweltering streets of Havana. Her story is one of fierce love, luscious sex, and otherworldly beauty, but also of heartbreak and hardness.  (A sequel of sorts to The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love).

 

by Marie-Elena John

Matilda, descended from African slaves, was a famous healer and possible murderer. Her daughter, Iris, was famous as the jilted lover of a rich man and the victim of a horrific rape. Iris' daughter, Lillian, was raised by her devoutly Catholic stepmother, unaware that the infamous women of song are her legacy. 

 

by Kei Miller

A smell is coming down John Golding Road right alongside the boy-child, something attached to him, like a spirit but not quite. Ma Taffy is growing worried. She knows that something is going to happen. Something terrible is going to pour out into the world. But if she can hold it off for just a little bit longer, she will.

 

 In 1988 (the age of mix-tapes and records) 15-year-old Meche and her only friends, book-loving Sebastian and dreamer Daniela, discover literal magic in Meche's record collection. They use their newfound powers to raise their social status, but the emotional stresses of magic and adolescence test their friendships to the breaking point.

Setting:  Mexico
 

by Thomas Sanchez

"We understand the economics of love," says Mrs. Armstrong, a sexy American socialite residing in Cuba. "To really sell a torch song, you've got to be willing to light yourself on fire." Like her, an entire gallery of wonderfully eccentric characters seems ready to go up in flames in this flamboyant noir epic.

 

by Helen Weinzweig

A woman using the alias Lola jets from city to city, following the clues Coenraad leaves behind in copies of National Geographic to indicate the sites of their glamorous rendezvous. But when Lola arrives in Toronto -- their next destination and the city she ostensibly resides in -- there is no National Geographic awaiting her arrival.  (A lost feminist classic)

 

by Anthony C. Winkler

Expecting to make landfall in paradise after over a month at sea, the crew of the Santa Inez instead find themselves in the middle of a timid, innocent people.  That they believe the arrivals were from heaven makes even more complicated this impossible entanglement of culture, custom, and beliefs, ultimately leading to mutual doom.

 

by Inger Ash Wolfe

Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef has lived all her days in the small town of Port Dundas and is now making her way toward retirement with something less than grace.  When a terminally ill woman is gruesomely murdered in her own home, Hazel and her understaffed department must spring to life.

 

by Aura Xilonen

Liborio has been beaten down by a life of relentless abuse, violence, and suffering. His salvation comes in the form of books, love, and boxing. From a tragic and angry teen, Liborio blossoms, or erupts, into a focused, sympathetic hero.