“Brazilian writer Madalosso’s English-language debut opens with a kidnapping. Sweaty with nerves, nanny Maju will take four-year-old Cora from São Paulo over the border to Paraguay, where she can get the girl a new passport, then to the southern Brazilian state where Maju spent her impoverished childhood, raised by her grandmother. Cora’s mother, Fernanda, distracted by her high-profile TV job and a scorching affair, doesn’t learn anything is amiss until late that evening... A bitter and loving, eviscerating, suspenseful, and tender psychological novel about class, gender, motherhood, and nature both within and without.”
Read the full starred review in Booklist.
