Familia

Rico (Solo) dazzles with a surprising story of the pleasures and pitfalls of amateur genealogy. Gabby DiMarco, 25, is working as a fact-checker at a prominent Manhattan magazine when her boss orders all employees to take a genealogy test for a potential story. An only child of two loving parents, Gabby hopes to find an unexpected cousin or two. A parallel narrative set in San Juan, Puerto Rico, follows a 30-something woman named Isabella Ruíz whose younger sister, Marianna, was kidnapped as an infant by a local gang leader whom their father owed money to. Isabella, who was five at the time of the kidnapping, and whose mother died giving birth to Marianna, was overwhelmed with guilt because she had recently wished her sister would disappear. That guilt defines the next two decades of her life as she attempts to locate Marianna. When Gabby surfaces as a potential connection on an ancestry site, Isabella contacts her, believing she’s Marianna, though Gabby has her doubts. Rico perfectly portrays the possible sisters’ fraught relationship through a series of surprising twists and turns. This skillful tale enchants. Agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyon Literary. (Jan.)