Reyne Grande is an award-winning author who released her latest novel, A Ballad of Love and Glory, in March. She’s also written the memoirs The Distance Between Us and A Dream Called Home, the novels Across a Hundred Mountains (Atria, 2006) and Dancing with Butterflies (Washington Square Press, 2009). Reyna has received an American Book Award, the El Premio Aztlán Literary Award, and the International Latino Book Award. In 2012, she was a finalist for the prestigious National Book Critics Circle Awards. In 2015 she was honored with a Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature and a Latino Spirit Award in 2021. The young reader’s version of The Distance Between Us received a 2017 Honor Book Award for the Américas Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature and a 2016 Eureka! Honor Awards from the California Reading Association and an International Literacy Association Children’s Book Award 2017.
Novel Excerpt: ‘A Ballad of Love and Glory’ by Reyna Grande
A Ballad of Love and Glory is historical fiction inspired by true events and real-life figures and also illuminates a little-known chapter of the Mexican-American War: An Irish soldier in the Saint Patrick’s Battalion, a regiment of foreign-born soldiers that deserted the U.S. Army to fight for Mexico, falls in love with a widowed nurse in the Mexican Army, and together they must fight for their love and survival. ( Available in Spanish in October and available in paperback in January 2023.)