When Faye left Mexico after the death of her son and the slow unraveling of her marriage, she thought she'd left her painful past behind. But when she returns to care for her elderly mother-in-law, old memories resurge with a vengeance and manifest in debilitating, chronic pain. Soon she becomes dependent on a healer whose incantations and medicinal plants cause her to hallucinate and relive past traumas.

Luzma, a timid, cautious, devout Catholic, knows her role: obedient wife and doting mother. But motherhood eludes her. Newly pregnant after two miscarriages, she's terrified and losing faith. She soon learns that Faye has a past with her husband, and the longer Faye stays, the more Luzma fears she'll lose him too.

BOUGAINVILLEA is the story of two women-one having a crisis of faith, the other a crisis of history-and the unlikely friendship that forces them to come to terms with loss, betrayal, and the despair that drives them into the arms of the wrong men.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Shirley Hilton’s poetry, fiction, and nonfiction appear in multiple online and print journals. Her nonfiction has been nominated for Best of the Net, and three of her poems have been set to music by award-winning jazz musician Ryan Middagh. She has family on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border and frequently writes about the joys and wonders of having a foot firmly planted in two cultures. She currently lives in Iowa, where she writes, dances tango, and talks to strangers.