A Growing Season

Hailed by Booklist as "Two talented authors who vividly bring to life the beauty of New Mexico and its people", Sue Boggio and Mare Pearl return to Esperanza, New Mexico, where a devastating drought threatens the farming community's survival. Vultures circle in the form of developers who see failing farms as ripe pickings for a bedroom community for Albuquerque. Court battles pit the endangered silvery minnow against the farmers as the once mighty Rio Grande shrinks from its banks even as demand for its precious water increases.

Abby Silva and her adopted son Santiago must heal from the violence of the past to claim their futures. CeCe and Miguel Vigil care for CeCe's octogenarian Jewish parents, whose long-distance disapproval of their marriage is now played out under their own roof, threatening their once solid union. Their daughter Rachel finally confronts the Jewish half of her ethnicity through her grandparents, Holocaust survivor Zeyde Mort, and irrepressible Brooklyn Bubbe Rose.

In A Growing Season, Esperanza is an American community at the crossroads. A place where people are struggling to preserve a traditional way of life and bring it into the future despite overwhelming odds. A place where cultures must cross divides if all are to thrive. Where love is risked, secrets are revealed, past wounds healed, compromises become victories and somehow, standing together despite their differences, good, brave people prevail.

"A spellbinding tale of New Mexico."

~ Jo-Ann Mapson, author of Solomon's Oak and Finding Casey

"Mare Pearl and Sue Boggio are at their best capturing the mystery and drama of family, with stories that remind us that our fates are intertwined and the stakes are the highest: love, loss, redemption, and, ultimately, survival. A GROWING SEASON is a gorgeous, tender novel brimming with rich, true characters, and set in the fiercely beautiful landscape that could only be New Mexico. Treat yourself."

~ Sarah Lovett, best-selling author of Dangerous Attachments and Dark Alchemy

"The compelling story of a young man's coming of age in an extended family with generations of secrets. Using a chile farm as its central setting, the book tells the enthralling and moving story of the power of love to find us where we sit and transform mundane lives into joy."

~ Anne Hillerman, author of Gardens of Santa Fe

"There are no chiles like those grown in the heart of New Mexico. In A Growing Season, Sue Boggio and Mare Pearl bring to life the deeply rooted traditions and wonderfully diverse community that sows and harvests this amazing fruit—even as drought, economic fragility, and human greed threaten it year by year."

~ Ann Cummins, author of Yellowcake

"A Growing Season skillfully crafts a wealth of characters with which readers can identify. A real page turner."

~ Melody Groves, author of Hoist a Cold One! Historic Bars of the Southwest
and Colton Brothers Saga trilogy.

"In A Growing Season, you will laugh, agonize and celebrate with these rich and real characters as they battle the drought, their pasts and sometimes each other. Esperanza, New Mexico is a vivid world that will live in your heart long after you close the cover."

~ Sarah Bird, author of "The Flamenco Academy" and "The Gap Year"