From award-winning author Margarita Engle comes an enthralling and heartrending novel in verse about first love, hidden cultures, and ancestral connections that follows a teen’s journey to uncover her late grandmother’s roots in Cuba.

Just before she was transformed

into an invisible spirit

my grandmother whispered her last wishes

into my ear:

Sprinkle my ashes in a patch of girasoles,

wait patiently, harvest the seeds,

fly to la isla, find el jardín,

plant las semillas.

Then and only then—

read my diaries.

Evamar has arrived in Cuba with her abuela’s ashes and her mother’s warnings: Don’t talk politics, boil the tap water before you drink, y por favor absolutamente, don’t fall in love. But then she meets Río, a captivating drummer whose music and presence she can’t ignore.

Río bears his own scars, separated from his family in the United States. As their bond deepens, Evamar discovers an ancestral treasure that could change her future—and the lives of millions of Caribbeans.