"High Spirits is a collection of eleven interconnected short stories from the Dominican diaspora, from debut author Camille Gomera-Tavarez. It is a book centered on one extended family - the Beléns - across multiple generations. It is set in the fictional small town of Hidalpa - and Santo Domingo and Paterson and San Juan and Washington Heights too. It is told in a style both utterly real and distinctly magical - and its stories explore machismo,...

The story of a Dominican girl, the Anglo woman who introduces her to riding, and the horse who changes everything for her. --Publisher

Camino Rios lives in the Dominican Republic and yearns to go to Columbia University in New York City, where her father works most of the year. Yahaira Rios, who lives in Morningside Heights, hasn't spoken to her dad since the previous summer, when she found out he has another wife in the Dominican Republic. Their lives collide when this man, their dad, dies in an airplane crash with hundreds of other passengers heading to the island. Each protagonist...

While doing research for her documentary about her cousin Natasha--who disappeared in the Dominican Republic fifty years ago during the Trujillo--twelve-year-old Pilar Violeta Ramirez is transported to Zafa, an island where Dominican myths and legends come to life and where her cousin is being held captive in a sinister magical prison, and Pilar must defeat the Dominican boogeyman if she hopes to free Natasha and return home to Chicago. Includes author's...

"With a new sibling (her fourth) on the way and a big piano recital on the horizon, Dominican-American Ana María Reyes tries to win a scholarship to a New York City private school"--

"Two best friends, a writer and a runner, deal with bullies, family issues, social pressures, and their quest for success coming out of Harlem"--

"Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, Xiomara Batista has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. She pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers--especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. Mami is determined...

Lola was just a baby when her family left the Island, so when she has to draw it for a school assignment, she asks her family, friends, and neighbors about their memories of her homeland ... and in the process, comes up with a new way of understanding her own heritage.