Julianne Pachico Libri

Lena has always lived in the jungle with Mother. There they look after a holiday home in surroundings that burst with colour and crawl with danger. Lena's only other friend is Isabella, who once visited regularly with her wealthy parents and security drone, Anton. But Isabella and her family haven't been seen in years.Mother is not like other mothers. She gets angry when Lena draws her with a face. When Lena challenges her to portray herself, she paints a tiny yellow dot surrounded by swirling black. She is a bastion of light, she says, against an army of darkness.Outside, rebels are fighting to take over the country. Mother is determined nothing will change inside the security fence, nothing to threaten her bond with Lena, or endanger the family. But there are secrets that need to emerge. How did Lena end up here? And what has happened to the family who no longer visit? What has Mother been planning, and what is gathering around them to change their lives forever?

The propulsive debut novel from one of the most innovative young fiction writers today - a searing and affecting depiction of what redemption can be for a person and for a country in the wake of trauma.

Set mostly in lush, heady Colombia but even in a jungle-like New York City, this book brings together the fates of guerrilla soldiers, rich kids, rabbits, hostages, bourgeois expats, and drug dealers. Interconnected yet fractured in places, it is a narrative jigsaw puzzle with some of the pieces missing.