YA author Daniel Aleman is back this week with the release of his second novel, titled Brighter Than the Sun. The book centers on 16-year-old Sol, a girl who traverses from Mexico to the US to attend school, and must soon find a way to help keep her family’s restaurant open. It is available now online and in stores.
Brighter Than the Sun is the follow-up to Aleman’s debut Indivisible, which follows Mateo Garcia and his younger sister Sophie as they face the threat of their parents being deported. Aleman is currently working on an untitled third novel.
The official synopsis for Brighter Than the Sun reads:
“Every morning, sixteen-year-old Sol wakes up at the break of dawn in her hometown of Tijuana, Mexico and makes the trip across the border to go to school in the United States. Though the commute is exhausting, this is the best way to achieve her dream: becoming the first person in her family to go to college.
When her family’s restaurant starts struggling, Sol must find a part-time job in San Diego to help her dad put food on the table and pay the bills. But her complicated school and work schedules on the US side of the border mean moving in with her best friend and leaving her family behind.
With her life divided by an international border, Sol must come to terms with the loneliness she hides, the pressure she feels to succeed for her family, and the fact that the future she once dreamt of is starting to seem unattainable. Mostly, she’ll have to grapple with a secret she’s kept even from herself: that maybe she’s relieved to have escaped her difficult home life, and a part of her may never want to return.“
