* Signed bookplate * Now — 1991 Cambridge, MA. Liliana Soto Walker is an 18-year-old freshman who arrives at Harvard from the humble Appalachian home of her Cuban immigrant mother and Black American father. Lily feels out of place in this new world of privilege, but her roommate Hana and a budding romance with Vikram – a charming Indian-British postdoctoral student – stirs a new sense of belonging. Then — 1957 Havana, Cuba. Marisol, Lily’s mother, is a bright young woman with dreams of becoming a journalist. But as the calls for a government coup reach a deadly crescendo, one deadly night ahead of the Cuban Revolution forces Marisol to flee her homeland, leaving her scarred in ways she has never revealed. Until now.