'Powerful' Sunday Times
'Electric' Danya Kukafka
'Vital' Katie Gutierrez
'A triumph' Alice Ryan
'A powerful read' Heat
'Read this book!' Angie Cruz
'An instant classic' Morning Star
'Deserves all the hype' Glamour
'Crackles with life'Xochitl Gonzalez
'The book of the year' Rene Denfeld
Carmen and Grace have been inseparable since they were little girls – more like sisters than cousins, survivors of a childhood marked by neglect and addiction. For too long, all they had was each other.
That is, until Doña Durka swept into their lives and changed everything, taking Grace into her home and playing an outsize role in Carmen's upbringing too.
But Durka is more than a beneficent force in their Bronx neighbourhood. She's also the leader of an underground drug empire, a larger-than-life matriarch who understands the importance of taking what power she can in a world too often ruled by violent men.
So when Durka dies suddenly, Carmen and Grace's lives are thrown into chaos. Grace has been primed to take over and has grand plans to expand the business, but Carmen is ready to move on – from Durka's shadow, and from always looking over her shoulder in fear.
As tough and tender as its main characters, Carmen and Grace is a devastatingly wise and intimate story about the bonds of female friendship, ambition and found family.
Genre: Literary Fiction
'Electric' Danya Kukafka
'Vital' Katie Gutierrez
'A triumph' Alice Ryan
'A powerful read' Heat
'Read this book!' Angie Cruz
'An instant classic' Morning Star
'Deserves all the hype' Glamour
'Crackles with life'Xochitl Gonzalez
'The book of the year' Rene Denfeld
Carmen and Grace have been inseparable since they were little girls – more like sisters than cousins, survivors of a childhood marked by neglect and addiction. For too long, all they had was each other.
That is, until Doña Durka swept into their lives and changed everything, taking Grace into her home and playing an outsize role in Carmen's upbringing too.
But Durka is more than a beneficent force in their Bronx neighbourhood. She's also the leader of an underground drug empire, a larger-than-life matriarch who understands the importance of taking what power she can in a world too often ruled by violent men.
So when Durka dies suddenly, Carmen and Grace's lives are thrown into chaos. Grace has been primed to take over and has grand plans to expand the business, but Carmen is ready to move on – from Durka's shadow, and from always looking over her shoulder in fear.
As tough and tender as its main characters, Carmen and Grace is a devastatingly wise and intimate story about the bonds of female friendship, ambition and found family.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"In a world fraught with violence, Melissa Coss Aquino brilliantly delivers a heartwarming, loving novel with characters you are inspired to ride or die with. . . . If you love reading novels about creative, ambitious, and relentless women who are committed to community and making a way out of no way, read this book!" - Angie Cruz
"Prepare to not breathe. This is a remarkable, heart-pounding book based on the best kind of tension - the real kind. . . . By turns touching, terrifying, and mesmerizing. Melissa Coss Aquino is a brilliant writer and this is the book of the year." - Rene Denfeld
"I was crying like I lost my best friend as I finished. . . . This book is an act of love . . . It will break you apart and remind you that we can all be put back together again, stronger, and wiser than before." - Xochitl Gonzalez
"Carmen and Grace is everything I could want in a novel: a wise and ferocious exploration of mothers and motherlessness, an urgent, heart-pounding journey to power and safety, and an all-too-human rendering of what we choose when choice is an illusion. In Carmen and Grace, Melissa Coss Aquino offers us two of the most indelible, vital characters in modern literature. If this novel were a lifetime achievement, it would be enough - but it's only the beginning for Aquino, and for that we should all be thankful." - Katie Gutierrez
"Electric, heartrending, and exceptionally tender . . . Every sentence of Melissa Coss Aquino's debut feels acute and deliberate, a shard of glass held up to the light." - Danya Kukafka
"Carmen and Grace is a gripping story of sisterhood, matriarchy, power, love and grief expressed between women caught up in an underground drug operation in the Bronx. Melissa Coss Aquino writes about toxic bonds and battling the cycle of violence with great skill. I couldn't put this book down." - Emily Raboteau
"This novel broke me open. Carmen and Grace goes down as one of my favorite books of the year?one of my favorite books period. Dios mio! Listen! A magnificent portrayal of the complexities of motherhood and the powerful bonds between brilliant women who make choices that prioritize their survival based on the cards they are dealt. I know these women. I am these women. No one but Melissa Coss Aquino could have written these characters and told this story with the care and compassion they deserve. Carmen and Grace will shatter you in the best way." - Elisabet Velasquez
"Prepare to not breathe. This is a remarkable, heart-pounding book based on the best kind of tension - the real kind. . . . By turns touching, terrifying, and mesmerizing. Melissa Coss Aquino is a brilliant writer and this is the book of the year." - Rene Denfeld
"I was crying like I lost my best friend as I finished. . . . This book is an act of love . . . It will break you apart and remind you that we can all be put back together again, stronger, and wiser than before." - Xochitl Gonzalez
"Carmen and Grace is everything I could want in a novel: a wise and ferocious exploration of mothers and motherlessness, an urgent, heart-pounding journey to power and safety, and an all-too-human rendering of what we choose when choice is an illusion. In Carmen and Grace, Melissa Coss Aquino offers us two of the most indelible, vital characters in modern literature. If this novel were a lifetime achievement, it would be enough - but it's only the beginning for Aquino, and for that we should all be thankful." - Katie Gutierrez
"Electric, heartrending, and exceptionally tender . . . Every sentence of Melissa Coss Aquino's debut feels acute and deliberate, a shard of glass held up to the light." - Danya Kukafka
"Carmen and Grace is a gripping story of sisterhood, matriarchy, power, love and grief expressed between women caught up in an underground drug operation in the Bronx. Melissa Coss Aquino writes about toxic bonds and battling the cycle of violence with great skill. I couldn't put this book down." - Emily Raboteau
"This novel broke me open. Carmen and Grace goes down as one of my favorite books of the year?one of my favorite books period. Dios mio! Listen! A magnificent portrayal of the complexities of motherhood and the powerful bonds between brilliant women who make choices that prioritize their survival based on the cards they are dealt. I know these women. I am these women. No one but Melissa Coss Aquino could have written these characters and told this story with the care and compassion they deserve. Carmen and Grace will shatter you in the best way." - Elisabet Velasquez
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