From an award-winning author and illustrator, a warm, gentle ode to cherished visits from grandparents and the people and places that make us who we are even if we haven’t met them yet.
Natalia Sylvester Book order
Natalia Sylvester crafts narratives that delve into the complexities of family dynamics and cultural identity. Her writing often explores themes of loss, memory, and the search for belonging. Sylvester employs rich, evocative prose to bring her characters and their compelling stories to life. Her novels offer profound insights into the experiences of those navigating multiple worlds.





- 2024
- 2022
Breathe And Count Back From Ten
- 336 pages
- 12 hours of reading
Verónica, a Peruvian-American teen, must deal with both her painful hip dysplasia and her overprotective immigrant parents, all while chasing her dream to become a professional mermaid in this gorgeously written, authentic novel about secrets and finding your wings (or tail).
- 2020
Running
- 336 pages
- 12 hours of reading
Cuban American Marianna has always given her father her vote. But now that he's running for president, she starts to view him with new eyes, and isn't sure she likes what she sees. An authentic, humorous, and gorgeously written novel about waking up and speaking up.
- 2018
Everyone Knows You Go Home
- 319 pages
- 12 hours of reading
An International Latino Book Award winner. "Everyone Knows You Go Home is prescient, tackling issues of family division, the arduous journey of crossing from one country into the next, and the sacrifices we make in exchange for a better future." --Houston Chronicle The first time Isabel meets her father-in-law, Omar, he's already dead--an apparition appearing uninvited on her wedding day. Her husband, Martin, still unforgiving for having been abandoned by his father years ago, confesses that he never knew the old man had died. So Omar asks Isabel for the impossible: persuade Omar's family--especially his wife, Elda--to let him redeem himself. Isabel and Martin settle into married life in a Texas border town, and Omar returns each year on the celebratory Day of the Dead. Every year Isabel listens, but to the aggrieved Martin and Elda, Omar's spirit remains invisible. Through his visits, Isabel gains insight into not just the truth about his disappearance and her husband's childhood but also the ways grief can eat away at love. When Martin's teenage nephew crosses the Mexican border and takes refuge in Isabel and Martin's home, questions about past and future homes, borders, and belonging arise that may finally lead to forgiveness--and alter all their lives forever.
- 2017
Chasing the Sun
- 304 pages
- 11 hours of reading
Andres suspects his wife has left him--again. Then he learns that the unthinkable has happened: she's been kidnapped. Too much time and too many secrets have come between Andres and Marabela, but now that she's gone, he'll do anything to get her back. Or will he? As Marabela slips farther away, Andres must decide whether they still have something worth fighting for, and exactly what he'll give up to bring her home. And unfortunately, the decision isn't entirely up to him, or up to the private mediator who moves into the family home to negotiate with the terrorists holding Marabela. Andres struggles to maintain the illusion of control while simultaneously scrambling to collect his wife's ransom, tending to the needs of his two young children, and reconnecting with an old friend who may hold the key to his past and his wife's future. Set in Lima, Peru, in a time of civil and political unrest, this evocative page-turner is a perfect marriage of domestic drama and suspense.