Woman of Light

A dazzling epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West, from the author of the National Book Award Finalist Sabrina & Corina

"There is one every generation-a seer who keeps the stories."

In the midst of the Great Depression, Luz "Little Light" Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is abandoned after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer and factory worker, is run out of Denver by a violent white mob.

Luz's clairvoyance grows and her visions transport her to her indigenous homelands. She recounts memories of her ancestors and bears witness to their wondrous origins, how the cottonwood trees and white watered rivers warn of danger in the coming tides of white men. Luz discovers that a force more sinister than anyone could have imagined charges across the land, threatening the safety and happiness of all who get in its way. It's up to Luz to save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion.

Written in Kali Fajardo-Anstine's singular voice, the wildly entertaining and complex lives of the Lopez family fill the pages of this multigenerational western saga. Woman of Light is a mesmerizing, transfixing novel about survival, family secrets, and love, filled with an unforgettable cast of characters, all of whom are just as special, memorable, and complicated as our beloved heroine, Luz.