CHASING THE SUN

A commercial novel that combines a lyrical, literary voice with a high stakes plot -- sort of a cross between Jodi Picoult’s Lone Wolf and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, with a similarly nuanced portrayal of hope, family, and love.

Before Andres learns about his wife’s kidnapping, he initially suspects that she’s left him – again. Too much time, and too many secrets, have come between them, but now the unthinkable has happened and he’d do anything to get her back. Unfortunately, it isn’t entirely up to him, nor the private mediator who moves in to help. Andres tries to maintain the illusion of control, but he is simultaneously nursing his own bruised ego, scrambling to make his wife’s ransom and managing the needs of children, employees, family, and friends. As Marabela slips ever farther away from him, Andres must soon decide whether they still have something worth fighting for, and just how far he'll go to do it. Set in Lima, Peru, where kidnappings occur with frightening regularity, Where We Once Belonged brings to life not only the dramatic tension of kidnapping, but the emotional ripple effects felt by the entire family. The author, Natalia Sylvester, spent her early childhood in Lima, where her own grandfather was kidnapped when she was a child. In this way her novel has socio-historic significance on par with Latin contemporaries Cristina Garcia (Dreaming In Cuban) and Julia Alvarez (In the Time of the Butterflies), though like them the storytelling always comes first. Natalia is an extremely gifted writer who has been published in Writer’s Digest, The Writer, and Latina magazine. She runs a writing blog, Finding Truth Through Fiction, at www.nataliasylvester.com.