“Themes of environmental justice, queer love, and Indigenous rights intersect in González’s mystery. González shines at exploring the effects of racist discrimination against Indigenous Mexicans without ever reducing characters to mere pawns. Her prose style is simple yet poignant and emotive, particularly when describing human desire and natural beauty. A suspenseful but tender tale that exemplifies the power of intersectionality.” —Kirkus Reviews

If ever there were a novel for our times it is Estela Gonzalez’s Arribada. Deftly crafted, emotionally impacting, truly memorable characters, and a reverberating theme of responsibility, Arribada showcases the author's genuine flair for originality and effective narrative driven storyteller style.—Midwest Book Review

“Arribada is a novel about how even the most painful truths can bring power and freedom.” —EILEEN GONZALEZ, Foreword Reviews (details below)

“Set in a fictional seaside locale, based partly on Mazatlan, this seductive, mesmerizing novel lyrically interweaves the encroaching consumerism of resorts, thinning beaches, and disappearing tortoises, all while presenting an intimate, generational family portrait replete with orphans, murder, sensuality, and compassion, including a lesbian affair that leads to a community reclamation of land. And always at the center-the ocean. Unforgettable.”--LEE HOPE, Founding Editor, Solstice Magazine

“Arribada is a lyrical, deeply personal story and a carefully researched historical novel, steeped in our right to love whom we love, the depth of family bonds, and the defense of our environment against the forces of extractivism: its themes are both timely and timeless. Estela fearlessly addresses a web of issues without simplifying them, knowing that life is not a one-issue experience but rather interrelated and complex.”—RICHARD BLANCO, 2013 Presidential Inaugural Poet, author of The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood

“Arribada is romantic, poetic, elegiac, and fascinating. Gonzalez has created a whole world of love and mystery. Word to word, event to event, this novel is beautiful. It begs to be savored.”--SANDRA SCOFIELD, author of Swim: Stories of the Sixties and The Last Draft

“Arribada is a wonderful read, and like its title implies, it has the power to make readers arrive where it matters.”—LUIS ALBERTO URREA, author of The House of Broken Angels

“In Arribada (Arrival), author Estela Gonzalez examines the destruction of Mexico’s Pacific seacoast by developers eager for tourist dollars—and the efforts of the local people to restore and protect this fragile environment. Tangled family and community histories complicate these efforts. The story is told from multiple points of view by members of the Sanchez Celis family: sisters Mariana, a pianist recently returned from international performance to her hometown, and Luisa, an artist who has stayed behind. We also hear from Fernanda, an indigenous woman who has become a marine biologist and is working to save the area’s sea turtles, and who becomes Mariana’s lover. No one is who they seem to be at first: the sisters’ mother Clavel has kept secrets about her daughters’ origins; the girls’ deceased father was complicit in the coastal destruction; and as the book opens, the sisters' beloved uncle, their mother’s youngest brother, has disappeared. North Americans who travel to Mexico to enjoy its beaches and nightlife may be unaware of the destructive histories and effects of the resorts they enjoy. This novel will open their eyes.”—AMY HOFFMAN, author of The Off Season, and Lies About My Family

“In Estela González’s novel Arribada, a terrible loss forces a Mexican family to reevaluate their lives.

Mariana is her family’s great hope. She’s sent abroad to attend school and becomes a concert pianist. But after two family tragedies, she returns to seaside Ayotlan, which suffered severe environmental degradation from overfishing and tourism. Here, Mariana becomes involved with an effort to save the community’s most vulnerable people—an effort that may have been the catalyst for her uncle’s disappearance, leading to the rewriting of her relationship with her family.

Mariana also deals with her sick mother, Clavel, and her growing feelings for Fernanda, an Indigenous conservationist. Like Mariana, Fernanda was pushed to make something of herself, and to overcome the barriers that society placed in her way. The women cling to each other as their worlds become more complicated and dangerous.

Racism and colorism loom in their everyday lives, perverting family relationships and threatening—but not weakening—their burgeoning love for each other. But there is much more to Mariana’s family’s troubles than it first seems. After the biggest secret is revealed, flashbacks provide insights into the truths that Mariana is forced to reckon with. The hard realities of being a woman—especially a poor woman—are laid bare with stark, horrifying details that cast the entire family in a new light. In particular, Clavel—strong, flawed, and the linchpin for both halves of the story—is revealed in full. Whether those truths are enough to earn Mariana’s forgiveness remains an open question.

Arribada is a novel about how even the most painful truths can bring power and freedom.”—EILEEN GONZALEZ, Foreword Reviews