Introduction

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

"Sekaran has written a page-turner that’s touching and all too real." —People

“A fiercely compassionate story about the bonds and the bounds of motherhood and, ultimately, of love.”—Cristina Henríquez, author of The Book of Unknown Americans

Eighteen years old and fizzing with optimism, Solimar Castro-Valdez embarks on a perilous journey across the Mexican border. Weeks later, she arrives in Berkeley, California, dazed by first love found then lost, and pregnant. This was not the plan. Undocumented and unmoored, Soli discovers that her son, Ignacio, can become her touchstone, and motherhood her identity in a world where she’s otherwise invisible.

Kavya Reddy has created a beautiful life in Berkeley, but then she can’t get pregnant and that beautiful life seems suddenly empty. When Soli is placed in immigrant detention and Ignacio comes under Kavya’s care, Kavya finally gets to be the singing, story-telling kind of mother she dreamed of being. But she builds her love on a fault line, her heart wrapped around someone else’s child.

“Nacho” to Soli, and “Iggy” to Kavya, the boy is steeped in love, but his destiny and that of his two mothers teeters between two worlds as Soli fights to get back to him. Lucky Boy is a moving and revelatory ode to the ever-changing borders of love.

Editorial Review

An Amazon Best Book of January 2017: Lucky Boy presents two very different American stories, tied together by the fate of a child. When Soli Castro-Valdez leaves her small Mexican village for the United States, she endures the difficult journey but arrives pregnant and undocumented. Meanwhile, Kavya Reddy, whose parents immigrated to the US from India, is living a more peaceful life with her dot.com-employed husband in Berkeley. Unable to have a child, Kavya becomes a foster parent—and when Soli winds up in immigrant detention, her son Ignacio winds up with Kavya. But the story has just begun.

Author Shanthi Sekaran has written a novel that makes the reader think and feel while avoiding being didactic. Full of three-dimensional characters, the book is colorful and entertaining to the end. You’ll laugh and you’ll cry. You’ll question whether you should pick sides. And if you’re like me, you’ll be glad you picked up this penetrating novel. --Chris Schluep, The Amazon Book Review

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