Sandra Ramos O'Briant

The Sandoval Sisters' Secret of Old Blood earned the Best Historical Fiction award and the Best First Book award at the 15th annual ILBA, 2013.

The Sandoval Sisters' Secret of Old Blood tells the story of the conquest of New Mexico during the Mexican American War from a female perspective. The war is the backdrop for the sisters' individual love and coming-of-age stories in which they cope with racism, sexism, political intrigue and the power of superstition in that time and place.

The story also has a fair bit of romantic eroticism which the centuries-old Sandoval diaries dealt with candidly. My research didn't yield much information on rebellious Latinas of yore. They obeyed their fathers, brothers, husbands, and priests, so I wrote the Sandoval sisters-not exactly as firebrands-but as women who make a change toward owning their power, each in their own way, and all while living on a rough frontier at the juncture of three cultures.

A complete list and links for Sandra's work can be found here:
www.thesandovalsisters.com