Yxta Maya Murray

One look at the centuries-old document she receives from a mysterious stranger is all it takes to plunge Lola Sanchez-a brilliant bibliophile and owner of the Red Lion bookshop-into the adventure of an already adventurous lifetime. The ancient writings tell of a stolen fortune in Montezuma's gold-and of the thief's transformation from conquistatore to alchemist . . . to werewolf. Riches beyond imagining possibly await the stalwart globe-trotter...

"A restorer of rare books and manuscripts, Sara Gonzales lives in a solitary world filled with dusty, broken books. A born reader, Sara is doing with her life just what she set out to do, even at the expense of true love. When Sara is assigned to restore a banned and scandal-filled sixteenth-century book called The Conquest, she does not yet know that the stroy will consume her, intellecutally and emotionally, causing her to reevaluate her own sense...

The divergent paths of two girls in the Chicano gang world of Los Angeles. Cecilia is the sister of a gang leader and Lucia is his girlfriend. The girlfriend uses the connection to form a gang of her own, while the sister decides she has not the stomach for robbing old women, and gives up crime to become a cleaning woman. A first novel.