Daughter of Fire

For a young woman coming of age in sixteenth-century Guatemala, safeguarding her peoples legacy is a dangerous pursuit in a mystical, empowering, and richly imagined historical novel. Catalina de Cerrato is being raised by her widowed father, Don Alonso, in 1551 Guatemala, scarcely thirty years since the Spanish invasion. A ruling member of the oppressive Spanish hierarchy, Don Alonso holds sway over the newly relegated lower class of Indigenous communities. Fiercely independent, Catalina struggles to honor her father and her late mother, a Maya noblewoman to whom Catalina made a vow that only she can keep: preserve the lost sacred text of the Popol Vuh, the treasured and now forbidden history of the Kiche people. Urged on by her mothers spirit voice, and possessing the gift of committing the invaluable stories to memory, Catalina embarks on a secret and transcendent quest to rewrite them. Through ancient pyramids, Spanish villas, and caves of masked devils, she finds an ally in the captivating Juan de Rojas, a lord whose rule was compromised by the invasion. But as their love and trust unfold, and Don Alonsos tyranny escalates, Catalina must confront her conflicted blood heritageand its secretsonce and for all if shes to follow her dangerous quest to its historic end.