Winner, 2025 International Latino Book Award Gold Medal in Mystery

Winner, Women Writing the West 2025 WILLA Literary Award in Mystery/Thriller

Winner, Eleanor Taylor Bland Award for Crime Fiction Writers of Color

Finalist, 2025 High Plains International Book Award in Fiction


This gripping, high-stakes debut thriller about the lengths mothers will go to protect their children is perfect for fans of Wanda M. Morris and Jess Lourey.

Boots Marez is a Latina single mother raising a headstrong and sly eighteen-year-old boy she adopted six years ago. She also runs a school that helps the undocumented people in her politically divided town in Northern California. When her son Jaral is jailed for the murder of one of her former students, her world is turned upside down. 

Struggling to protect her son, Boots has to spotlight a community used to living in the shadows, putting her hard work over the years in doubt. Meanwhile, a vicious parents’ board wants to trash her ideals and oust her from the school she helped build. As she faces increasing danger to clear her son’s name, she must decide how far she is willing to go to bring her son home. 

But nothing is as it seems—Jaral has been keeping secrets from her after all. And as she puts the missing pieces together, she will discover a deeper and darker web of lies that has been hiding in plain sight.