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Melissa Rivero

Biography

Melissa Rivero

Melissa Rivero is the author of FLORES AND MISS PAULA and THE AFFAIRS OF THE FALCÓNS, which won the 2019 New American Voices Award and a 2020 International Latino Book Award. The book was also longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, and the Aspen Words Literary Prize. Born in Lima, Peru, and raised in Brooklyn, she is a graduate of NYU and Brooklyn Law School. She still lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Melissa Rivero

Books by Melissa Rivero

by Melissa Rivero - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Thirtysomething Flores and her mother, Paula, still live in the same Brooklyn apartment, but that may be the only thing they have in common. It’s been nearly three years since they lost beloved husband and father Martín. One day, cleaning beneath his urn, Flores discovers a note written in her mother’s handwriting: Perdóname si te falle. Recuerda que siempre te quise. (“Forgive me if I failed you. Remember that I always loved you.”) But what would Paula need forgiveness for? Now newfound doubts and old memories come flooding in, complicating each woman’s efforts to carve out a good life for herself and support the other in the same. When Flores and Paula learn they will be forced to move, they finally must confront their complicated past --- and decide if they share the same dreams for the future.

by Melissa Rivero - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Ana Falcón, along with her husband Lucho and their two young children, has fled the economic and political strife of Peru for a chance at a new life in New York City in the 1990s. Being undocumented, however, has significantly curtailed the family’s opportunities: Ana is indebted to a loan shark who calls herself Mama, and is stretched thin by unceasing shifts at her factory job. To make matters worse, Ana also must battle both criticism from Lucho’s cousin --- who has made it obvious that the family is not welcome to stay in her spare room for much longer --- and escalating and unwanted attention from Mama’s husband. As the pressure builds, Ana becomes increasingly desperate.