Books by Barbara de la Cuesta

"There were little sins and big sins, and if you committed too many little sins you were more likely to go on to the big ones. Some sins you did in your mind and then, sometimes, you went on to let yourself fall into them."Darkly witty and compulsively readable, Barbara de la Cuesta's novella lets us into the private life and secret thoughts of Rosa, an undocumented home health aide grappling with menopause and her unruly body, unexpected romance, grown children who alternately worry her and fill her with pride, and how life is confronting her with everything she has ever denied herself or hidden away from. Rosa is a natural storyteller, insightful in hindsight about her own motivations and unflinching in her willingness to look at the girl she was and the woman she has become. Rosa is a daring, funny, and emotional story about a woman moving her life out of the margins and into the sun with the power of confession.

Praise for Barbara de la Cuesta's previous novel, The Spanish Teacher, winner of the Gival Press Novel Prize... "The Spanish Teacher has everything to thrill you-pace, a great balance of description, gesture and action, charmed, perfectly tuned dialogue, and most notably, a character we follow as closely and sympathetically as if we were living right there inside the story with him…rarely do we see a full drama like this, where every bit of the writing extends from, grows out of, is part and parcel with the author's complete realization of and connection to her character…" -Don Berger, judge for the Gival Press Novel Award "…de la Cuesta's novel maintains an accumulating power which holds the reader's attention not only through the forceful figure of Ordóñez, but by demonstrating acutely how ordinary lives are impacted by the underlying social and political landscape. Compelling reading." -Tom Tolnay, author of Selling America and This Is the Forest Primeval