From the bestselling author of The Time In Between comes a sweeping historical saga of an immigrant’s rags-to-riches journey as she struggles to anchor herself in foreign land across three tumultuous decades.

Deeply harrowing circumstances force Cecilia Belmonte to leave her impoverished Spanish village and cross the Mediterranean to settle in Oran, a French Algerian city where she knows no one. She carries stolen identity papers, her body and soul burdened with confusion and pain.

Laboring on plantations and in laundries and factories, Cecilia navigates devastating twists of fate as she strives to rebuild a life of her own making. What begins as a modest operation of manufacturing soap with two Spanish refugees soon evolves into a flourishing enterprise. The advent of World War II and the arrival of American soldiers stationed in Algeria will change the course of Cecilia’s life once again—and for years to come.

In an emotionally gripping novel of resilience, love, courage, and the heartbreaking loss of home that spans decades, María Dueñas weaves intimate human drama with seismic historical events, creating an unforgettable portrait of a woman who refuses to be broken.

María Dueñas is the New York Times bestselling author of Sira and The Time In Between, which has sold more than three million copies. It has been translated into forty languages, won a number of literary awards, and was adapted into a television series that became a phenomenon in Spain and across the Spanish-speaking world. She continues to write and be involved in audiovisual projects and is working on the adaptation of Sira to a new television series.

Simon Bruni is an award-winning literary translator with a focus on contemporary Spanish and Latin American fiction and a wealth of experience translating books and articles within the humanities and social sciences. Simon combines his profound knowledge of the Spanish language with a supple command of written English, working creatively to bring Spanish voices to life in their new host language. His translations of Paul Pen’s The Light of the Fireflies and Sofía Segovia’s The Murmur of Bees have both become international bestsellers.