AMONG THE BEST INDIE LITERARY FICTION of the year -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review FINALIST -- Next Generation Indie Book Awards "A quietly moving novel ... raw and impactful." -- The BookLife Prize "A powerful story of dislocation." -- Publishers Weekly "Impressively original, exceptionally compelling, thoroughly engaging..." -- Midwest Book Review "Special moments of humanness that feel very tender ..." -- Writer's Digest "Storytelling at its finest." -- Independent Book Publishers Association, Awards Judge What compels someone to attempt to cross a brutal and unforgiving desert in search of a better life? In this deeply moving, short novel, a Midwest girl bears witness to—and then becomes entangled in—the struggles of two undocumented brothers caught on opposite sides of the US/Mexico border. Fourteen-year-old Hilde, raised on a family farm in Wisconsin, is dragged to the northern California coastal town of Pescadero by a mother fleeing a bad marriage. But Pescadero is worlds away from the conservative Midwest, and Hilde finds herself adrift in a community where all the attitudes she absorbed growing up seem oddly off-key. When her mother hires an undocumented farmworker to tend the goat farm the family is trying to revive, Hilde strikes up an unlikely friendship with him and learns of his plan to bring his brother across the Border. But the brother's journey turns calamitous, and Hilde soon becomes engulfed in its harrowing aftermath. "Brady debuts with a resonant narrative of a teen girl's coming-of-age and the struggles of a migrant worker's family. . . .Though the stakes of the story lines are starkly different, Brady effectively explores how migration upends all of her characters' lives. The result is a powerful story of dislocation."  -- Publishers Weekly "Brady treats heavy topics with gentle care while not shying away from hard realities. [She] allows readers to experience the emotional beats while also maintaining a fast pace, even during the most difficult moments. . . . An earnest, honest, and engaging tale of broken and repaired families." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review "Hilde grows from a girl grappling with a sudden relocation and the loss of the family she knew to a wiser, more outwardly compassionate individual, [as] the story of Gabriel and Joaquin plays out movingly." -- The BookLife Prize "Impressively original, exceptionally compelling, thoroughly engaging, and an inherently interesting read from start to finish, Pescadero . . .is a deftly crafted novel that will hold a very special appeal to readers with an interest in coming of age and immigration stories . . . today. -- Midwest Book Review "Storytelling at its finest." -- Independent Book Publishers Association, Awards Judge Hollis Brady is former director of The Stanford Publishing Course and other publishing ventures at Stanford University. Her activism in border issues has taken her to Nogales, Juarez, Agua Prieta, San Ysidro and Pescadero where she has collected stories from migrants and those supporting them in their journeys. She currently lives in Northern California, over the hill from Pescadero.