Along with Sandra Cisneros and Julia Alvarez, Esmeralda Santiago has emerged as one of today's preeminent Latina authors. Legions of fans have waited five long years for the next chapter of the story begun in her memoirs When I Was Puerto Rican and Almost a Woman. And now the wait is over.

In The Turkish Lover, Esmeralda finally breaks out of a monumental struggle with her powerful mother-only to come under the thrall of "the Turk" and discover that romantic passion, too, can become a prison. Esmeralda's journey of self-liberation and self-discovery is a daring one, candidly and zestfully recounted, and leads, most improbably, to her triumphant graduation from Harvard. (Her view of that venerable institution is an eye opener, told as only a brilliant writer totally outside the mold can tell it.) The expansive humanity, earthy humor, and psychological courage that made Esmeralda's first two books so successful are on full display again in The Turkish Lover, which will both reward the author's faithful readership and extend it. Hers is a fresh, exciting, and necessary voice.