On the arrival of a mysterious stranger laden with paintings, Leandro finds his quiet life disrupted instantly and mysteriously. He awakens locked in a windowless room in a topless tower, the subject of one of the stranger's eerie paintings. His childish voice draws the reader into a mythical world full of imaginary beings. Basking in her friendship with literary luminaries such as Italo Calvino and Borges, Argentine poet and author Silvina Ocampo is among the foremost figures in modern South American literature. Heavily influenced by nonsense literature such as Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and the surrealist movement in South America, The Topless Tower, features all the typical hallmarks of Ocampo's fantastical writing. With subtle inflections of language and tremendous displays of imagination running riot, Ocampo's writing is beautifully translated by James Womack.

Hesperus Worldwide, paperback, 9781843918554 (May)

Catherine Barnes—shocked to discover her marriage isn't what she thought it was—travels to Guatemala for some soul searching. She takes along her rebellious fourteen-year-old son Isaac, intending to leave him with his tough-love aunt, while she paints pictures for a children's book. In the remote mountain village of Todos Santos she falls under the spell of a rugged landscape and its welcoming, tenacious Mayan inhabitants. Just as she starts to feel at home in earthy kitchens where women pat out tortillas and tell her the stories of their lives, she discovers that Isaac is missing. Kidnappers are on their way to collect ransom from her in Todos Santos.

Mother and son confront rumors of foreign baby-snatchers and devil-worshippers, and threats of unexpected violence, as they search for each other. In finding Isaac, Catherine discovers that she must also find herself. Drawing on a deep knowledge of and empathy for Guatemala, and compellingly written, Todos Santos is ultimately a story of love, motherhood, and the hard choices we make.

A lyrical, powerful debut novel about a family of Afro-Puerto Rican women, spanning five generations, detailing their physical and spiritual journey from the Old World to the New.

It is the mid-1800s. Fela, taken from Africa, is working at her second sugar plantation in colonial Puerto Rico, where her mistress is only too happy to benefit from her impressive embroidery skills. But Fela has a secret. Before she and her husband were separated and sold into slavery, they performed a tribal ceremony in which they poured the essence of their unborn child into a very special stone. Fela keeps the stone with her, waiting for the chance to finish what she started. When the plantation owner approaches her, Fela sees a better opportunity for her child, and allows the man to act out his desire. Such is the beginning of a line of daughters connected by their intense love for one another, and the stories of a lost land.

Mati, a powerful healer and noted craftswoman, is grounded in a life that is disappearing in a quickly changing world. Concha, unsure of her place, doesn't realize the price she will pay for rejecting her past. Elena, modern and educated, tries to navigate between two cultures, moving to the United States, where she will struggle to keep her family together. Carisa turns to the past for wisdom and strength when her life in New York falls apart. The stone becomes meaningful to each of the women, pulling them through times of crisis and ultimately connecting them to one another. Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa shows great skill and warmth in the telling of this heartbreaking, inspirational story about mothers and daughters, and the ways in which they hurt and save one another.