Jennifer Givhan Livres

Belly to the Brutal sings a corrido of the love between mothers and daughters, confronting the learned complicity with patriarchal violence passed down from generation to generation. Each poem finds its own form, interweaving beauty and devastation to create a pathway out of the systems that have for too long oppressed women.

When Bianca appears late one night at her brother's house in Santa Ana, she is barely conscious, though not alone. Jubilee, wrapped in a fuzzy pink romper, is buckled into a car seat. Jubilee, who Bianca feeds and clothes and bathes and loves. Jubilee, who Bianca could not leave behind. Jubilee, a doll in her arms.Told in alternating points of view, Jubilee reveals both the haunting power of our lived experiences and the surreal possibility of the present to heal the past.The first thread, "Before Jubilee," follows Bianca in her girlhood home on the Mexicali border as she struggles with her high school sweetheart, Gabe, and a secret they've shared since she was fifteen.The second thread, "With Jubilee," is told from the point of view of her new love, Joshua, who along with Bianca's family helps her cope with a mysterious trauma by accepting Jubilee as part of the family. As Joshua's love for Bianca grows, he fears that Jubilee has the power to tear his tiny family apart.Alternating chapters give readers a unique perspective on Bianca's present and on her relationship with Jubilee as her past life with Gabe comes to a catastrophic end.Jubilee is at once a darkly suspenseful psychological drama and a luminous reflection on how beauty emerges from even the most traumatic of experiences.

Eva Santos Moon is a burgeoning Chicana artist who practices the ancient, spiritual ways of brujería and curanderisma, but she's at one of her lowest points--suffering from disorienting blackouts, creative stagnation, and a feeling of disconnect from her magickal roots. When her husband, a beloved university professor and the glue that holds their family together, is taken into custody for the shocking murder of their friend, Eva doesn't know whom to trust--least of all, herself. She soon falls under suspicion as a potential suspect, and her past rises to the surface, dredging up the truth about an eerily similar death from her childhood. Struggling with fragmented memories and self-doubt, an increasingly terrified Eva fears that she might have been involved in both murders. But why doesn't she remember? Only the dead women know for sure, and they're coming for her with a haunting vengeance. As she fights to keep her family out of danger, Eva realizes she must use her magick as a bruja to protect herself and her loved ones, while confronting her own dark history