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Book Cover for: Speak to Me of Home, Jeanine Cummins

Speak to Me of Home

Jeanine Cummins

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jeanine Cummins comes a deeply felt multigenerational family story that asks: What does it mean to call a place home?

On her wedding day in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1968, Rafaela Acuña y Daubón has mild misgivings, but she marries Peter Brennan Jr. anyway, in a blaze of romantic optimism. She has no way of knowing how dramatically her life will change when she uproots her young family to start over in the American Midwest, unleashing a fleet of disappointments. Against the backdrop of her mother's isolation in St. Louis, Missouri in the 1980s, Rafaela's daughter, Ruth Brennan, longs only to belong. Eager to fit in, Ruth lets go of her language, habits, and childhood memories of Puerto Rico. It's not until decades later, when Ruth's own daughter, Daisy, returns to Puerto Rico that her mother and grandmother begin to truly reflect on the choices that have come to define their lives.

When a hurricane ravages the island, leaving Daisy critically injured, Rafaela and Ruth return to the city where it all began. As they gather at Daisy's bedside, they're confronted by the pasts that brought them to this point. We follow them as they come of age, fall in love, take risks, and contend with all the heartbreaks, triumphs, and reversals of fortune -- both good and bad -- that make up a meaningful life. As old memories come to light, so do buried secrets, leaving everyone in the family wondering exactly where it is that they belong.

A striking, resonant examination of marriage, family, and identity, Speak to Me of Home is ultimately a story of mothers and daughters that asks: how can three women who share geography and genetics have such wildly different ideas of where it is they come from? And more importantly, can they discover the common language to find their way home?

Book Details

  • Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
  • Publish Date: May 13rd, 2025
  • Pages: 384
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.25in - 6.12in - 1.00in - 1.00lb
  • EAN: 9781250759368
  • Categories: Family Life - Marriage & DivorceHispanic & Latino - General

About the Author

Cummins, Jeanine: - Jeanine Cummins is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of American Dirt, which was an Oprah's Book Club and a Barnes & Noble Book Club selection, as well as a #1 Indie Next Pick. The novel has been translated into 37 languages and sold more than three and a half million copies worldwide. Her other works include the memoir A Rip in Heaven, and the novels The Outside Boy and The Crooked Branch. She lives in New York with her husband, two daughters, and their dogs.