The Veins of the Ocean: A Novel

Winner of the Dayton Literary Peace PrizeA San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year, A New York Times Editors’ Choice and a finalist for the International Latino Book Award"Engel has an eye for detail.

She knows how to drown the reader in a sense of enchantment...

She writes exquisite moments.”—Roxane Gay, The NationReina Castillo is the alluring young woman whose beloved brother is serving a death sentence for a crime that shocked the community, throwing a baby off a bridge—a crime for which Reina secretly blames herself.

With her brother's death, though devastated and in mourning, Reina is finally released from her prison vigil.

Seeking anonymity, she moves to a sleepy town in the Florida Keys where she meets Nesto Cadena, a recently exiled Cuban awaiting with hope the arrival of the children he left behind in Havana.