Speak to Me of Home

What do you think of when you think of home?

For Ruth, it's the house she has lovingly rebuilt around her family, a place of taste and refinement, now the focus of a flourishing online career. It's a shame her children don't always appreciate her work as much as her newfound followers, but there's always a new renovation to lose herself in.

For Ruth's daughter Daisy, the answer's not so simple. For while Puerto Rico's San Juan - scene of endless teenage summers, and now the inspiration for her vintage clothing start-up - has her heart, her refusal to return to the mainland and embark on a future is driving a wedge between herself and her mother.

Rafaela understands her granddaughter Daisy's attachment to the island, and wants to support her. But as each passing day brings her own youthful memories more vividly to the surface, she realises she too has choices to make. How can she explain all this to Ruth?

When Ruth receives the phone call all parents dread, during a tropical storm on the island the family must come to terms with how far they have drifted apart. Can they find their way back to one another?

Review

A big swooning romance, elegantly constructed and a pleasure to read... delectable ― The Times

Speak to Me of Home explores the compassion, frustration, and determination of emigrants from Puerto Rico to America. Cummins' characters leap off the page, many suffering homesickness, some hiding secrets, but all filled with love. A riveting tale of three generations, this is storytelling at its finest -- John Boyne, author of THE HEART'S INVISIBLE FURIES

I loved this book. Utterly absorbing, a big, sweeping story of family and identity, and what it means to belong. I fell in love with these characters and did not want this book to end. As emotional as it is insightful on the subject of home. A total tour de force, Jeanine Cummins is a master storyteller.

-- Edel Coffey, author of BREAKING POINT and IN HER PLACE

An engrossing cross-generational saga, and a heartfelt look at identity and what it means to belong ― The Shift

Entrancing. . . . There is a radiance to this saga. . . . the empathy with which Cummins envisions her characters is a poignant reminder that it is actual human beings who approach our borders, each with a singular story to tell ― Washington Post

A compelling novel, this is the perfect love song to the comfort of belonging, to the sadness when it falls away, and to the glory of when it is re-found ― Sunday Independent (Ireland)

Hops through time to tell a touching story about roots and belonging ― Real Simple

A fine novel. . . . Daisy's sections are the heart of the novel, dipping into magical realism as her spirit navigates the border between life and death and brings the family to her bedside with triumphant and transcendent love. This commendable return for Cummins comes with a surprise cherry-on-top twist ― Booklist

Engrossing. . . . Cummins succeeds at breathing life into her large cast of characters and excels at depicting the nuances of a mother-daughter relationship ― Publishers Weekly

Jeanine Cummins' Speak To Me Of Home is a masterful love letter to our shared homeland of Puerto Rico, the global diaspora, and every American. Once again, Cummins surveys the depths of the immigrant experience and compassionately examines the push and pull between our individual identity and our ancestral ties. Through three generations of Boricua women, the novel powerfully demonstrates that the greatest inheritance we can pass on is a courageous heart willing to adapt. Speak To Me Of Home is an epic must-read. -- Sarah McCoy, author of Whatever Happened to Lori Lovely

Jeanine Cummins' new novel is a beautiful, tender, complex story of origin, displacement, identity, and belonging. Poetically written and brimming with heart, Speak to Me of Home tells of a family's yearning, through the generations, to find the roots that truly anchor them, the land that calls them home. A most moving and meaningful read -- Jennifer Rosner, prizewinning author of The Yellow Bird Sings

About the Author

Jeanine Cummins is the author of AMERICAN DIRT, which has sold over 3.5 million copies globally, and has been translated into 37 languages, the novels THE OUTSIDE BOY, THE CROOKED BRANCH and the true crime work A RIP IN HEAVEN, all of which are published by Tinder Press. AMERICAN DIRT was selected for Oprah's Book Club and the Richard and Judy Book Club and was a no. 1 New York Times bestseller, and reached no. 2 in the Sunday Times bestseller lists. She lives in New York with her husband and two children.