"When you were born, I held you in my arms and tied a magical thread around your finger. That thread stretches and snags along the way, through the touchstone moments of a child's life. Through first steps and first stumbles, first love and first broken heart. Through classrooms and graduations, a lifetime of heartache and joy, of wonder and accomplishment. Yet the thread never breaks"--Front jacket flap

"In 1951, a mysterious old woman confronts Pilar Aguirre in the small border town of La Cienega, Texas. The old woman is sure Pilar stole her husband and, in a heated outburst, lays a curse on Pilar and her family. More than forty years later, Lulu Muñoz is dodging chaos at every turn: her troubled father’s moods, his rules, her secret life as [a] singer in a punk band, but most of all her upcoming quinceañera. When her beloved grandmother passes...

"This novel brings to life a nightmare scenario in the not-too-distant future when scientists undertake a misbegotten scheme to tame the power of the sun. In Burning Sky, three generations of a family confront the life-and-death challenge of global warming. The first, a cantankerous climatologist, raises the alarm. The second, a brilliant scientist with a lust for power that spawns a dictatorship, constructs 'the Cocoon,' a stratospheric shield to...