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2023 International Latino Book Award Winner
Finalist for the Texas Institute of Letters’s Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Fiction
A Long Petal of the Sea meets Cold Mountain in this “epic and exquisitely wrought” (Patricia Engel, New York Times bestselling author) saga following a Mexican army nurse and an Irish soldier who must fight, at first for their survival and then for their love, amidst the atrocity of the Mexican-American War—from the author of The Distance Between Us.
A forgotten war. An unforgettable romance.
The year is 1846. After the controversial annexation of Texas, the US Army marches south to provoke war with México over the disputed Río Grande boundary.
Ximena Salomé is a gifted Mexican healer who dreams of building a family with the man she loves on the coveted land she calls home. But when Texas Rangers storm her ranch and shoot her husband dead, her dreams are burned to ashes. Vowing to honor her husband’s memory and defend her country, Ximena uses her healing skills as a nurse on the frontlines of the ravaging war.
Meanwhile, John Riley, an Irish immigrant in the Yankee army desperate to help his family escape the famine devastating his homeland, is sickened by the unjust war and the unspeakable atrocities against his countrymen by nativist officers. In a bold act of defiance, he swims across the Río Grande and joins the Mexican Army—a desertion punishable by execution. He forms the St. Patrick’s Battalion, a band of Irish soldiers willing to fight to the death for México’s freedom.
When Ximena and John meet, a dangerous attraction blooms between them. As the war intensifies, so does their passion. Swept up by forces with the power to change history, they fight not only for the fate of a nation but for their future together.
“A grand and soulful novel by a storyteller who has hit her full stride” (Julia Alvarez, author of In the Time of the Butterflies), A Ballad of Love and Glory effortlessly illuminates a largely forgotten moment in history that impacts the US–México border to this day.
Reyna Grande
Born in Mexico, Reyna Grande is the author of the bestselling memoirs The Distance Between Us and its sequel, A Dream Called Home, as well as the novels Across a Hundred Mountains, Dancing with Butterflies, and A Ballad of Love and Glory. Reyna has received an American Book Award, the El Premio Aztlán Literary Award, and a Latino Spirit Award. The young reader’s version of The Distance Between Us received an International Literacy Association Children’s Book Award. Her work has appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post’s The Lily, on CNN, and more. She has appeared on Oprah's Book Club and has taught at the Macondo Writers Workshop, VONA, Bread Loaf, and other conferences for writers.
More by Reyna Grande
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