"Three decades in the making, Aquino's debut novel explores complex ideas: how things that are threatening can also be attractive and whether a debt is owed to the people and places that shaped you." – Washington Post
"Melissa Coss Aquino pens a story about the inextricable bonds that tie us to one another. Aquino's Carmen and Grace follows the journey of two cousins who venture down the same path ultimately seeking vastly different futures. Carmen and Grace examine the choices we make and how those decisions affect not only us but the people we love the most." – People en Espanol
"Cousins Carmen and Grace share a traumatic childhood that has bonded them together tightly. That is, until they meet a sisterhood of women known as the D.O.D, who are guided by a leader of an underground drug empire, Doña Durka. This plot-driven novel explores the bonds of found family and the ways into which power and ambition can sever relationships." – Lupita Aquino, Today.com
"Electric, heartrending, and exceptionally tender–this novel examines the limits of familial loyalty, twisted cycles of poverty and violence, and how far we'll go to protect those we love most. Carmen and Grace are unforgettable characters, vital and flawed and relentlessly enthralling. Every sentence of Melissa Coss Aquino's debut feels acute and deliberate, a shard of glass held up to the light." – Danya Kukafka, bestselling author of Notes on an Execution
"I was crying like I lost my best friend as I finished. Carmen and Grace crackles with life: its cruelty and kindness in equal measure. This book is an act of love, a story about found family, the magic sacred space that is created in a circle of women and, above all, the power and lessons of intuition. It will break you apart and remind you that we can all be put back together again, stronger, and wiser than before." – Xochitl Gonzalez, New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming
"Carmen and Grace is an extraordinary accomplishment, introducing Melissa Coss Aquino as a master stylist and suspense artist. Prepare to be transported from the cars and boulevards of the Bronx to the warehouses of Miami, in a story of resilience, forgiveness, and the people we call home. Thrillingly propulsive and with a haunting thrum of deep, aching humanity; Aquino delivers an epic sparkler of a debut." – T Kira Madden, author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls
"Prepare to not breathe. This is a remarkable, heart-pounding book based on the best kind of tension–the real kind. Carmen and Grace is the story of two young women swept into the underground drug trade, each trying desperately to gain freedom, in their own ways. It is by turns touching, terrifying, and mesmerizing. Melissa Coss Aquino is a brilliant writer and this is the book of the year." – Rene Denfeld, bestselling author of The Child Finder
"Carmen and Grace is everything I could want in a novel: a wise and ferocious exploration of mothers and motherlessness, an urgent, heart-pounding journey to power and safety, and an all-too-human rendering of what we choose when choice is an illusion. In Carmen and Grace, Melissa Coss Aquino offers us two of the most indelible, vital characters in modern literature. If this novel were a lifetime achievement, it would be enough–but it's only the beginning for Aquino, and for that we should all be thankful." – Katie Gutierrez, bestselling author of More Than You'll Ever Know
"This novel broke me open. Carmen and Grace goes down as one of my favorite books of the year–one of my favorite books period. Dios mio! Listen! A magnificent portrayal of the complexities of motherhood and the powerful bonds between brilliant women who make choices that prioritize their survival based on the cards they are dealt. I know these women. I am these women. No one but Melissa Coss Aquino could have written these characters and told this story with the care and compassion they deserve. Carmen and Grace will shatter you in the best way." – Elisabet Velasquez, poet and author of When We Make It
"Carmen and Grace is a gripping story of sisterhood, matriarchy, power, love and grief expressed between women caught up in an underground drug operation in the Bronx. Melissa Coss Aquino writes about toxic bonds and battling the cycle of violence with great skill. I couldn't put this book down." – Emily Raboteau, author of The Professor's Daughter
