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Lucky Boy

By: Shanthi Sekaran
Narrated by: Soneela Nankani, Roxana Ortega
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Summary

A gripping tale of adventure and searing reality, Lucky Boy gives voice to two mothers bound together by their love for one lucky boy.

Solimar Castro Valdez is 18 and drunk on optimism when she embarks on a perilous journey across the US-Mexican border. Weeks later she arrives on her cousin's doorstep in Berkeley, California, dazed by first love found then lost - and pregnant. This was not the plan. But amid the uncertainty of new motherhood and her American identity, Soli learns that when you have just one precious possession, you guard it with your life. For Soli, motherhood becomes her dwelling and the boy at her breast her hearth.

Kavya Reddy has always followed her heart, much to her parents' chagrin. A mostly contented chef at a UC Berkeley sorority house, the unexpected desire to have a child descends like a cyclone in Kavya's mid-30s. When she can't get pregnant, this desire will test her marriage, it will test her sanity, and it will set Kavya and her husband, Rishi, on a collision course with Soli when she is detained and her infant son comes under Kavya's care. As Kavya learns to be a mother - the singing, storytelling, inventor-of-the-universe kind of mother she fantasized about being - she builds her love on a fault line, her heart wrapped around someone else's child.

Lucky Boy is an emotional journey that will leave you certain of the redemptive beauty of this world. There are no bad guys in this story, no obvious hero. From rural Oaxaca to Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto to the dreamscapes of Silicon Valley, author Shanthi Sekaran has taken real life and applied it to fiction; the results are moving and revelatory.

©2017 Shanthi Sekaran (P)2017 Penguin Audio
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Critic reviews

“Sekaran has written a page-turner that’s touching and all too real.” (People)

“Offers a brilliantly agonizing setup.... [An] exceptional novel.” (The New York Times)

“Pulses with vitality, pumped with the life breath of human sin and love.” (USA Today)

What listeners say about Lucky Boy

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deep and thought provoking

I really enjoyed this book and the two readers perfectly chosen for the voices of this book. I particularly liked the intersection of perspectives, and the emotional journey of both characters. highly recommend this.

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A beautiful, moving yet challenging tale

So many emotions in one story: motherhood, love, determination, fear, pain. Such a timely novel to enjoy and prompt thought.

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A very moving book. Well written.

Well narrated. Explores the themes of immigration and motherhood with deep understanding. Couldn't stop listening.

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