“’The idea for Sanctuary came to me during a very dark period of our nation’s history,’ Mendoza tells Teen Vogue. She explains how, in the spring of 2018, the Trump administration began separating families at the southern border. In response, she helped organize marches across the country to rally for the end of this hateful policy. It worked, but the trauma that the families endured was unchangeable. ‘In my despair I allowed myself to imagine the worst possible future for our country,’ she says. ‘I brought to life the fears of the thousands of undocumented immigrants I had interviewed over the past decade. I saw a future full of injustice. But what frightened me the most was that this imagined reality was an actual possibility.’”If reading dystopian during our current apocalypse is your thing, here’s Paola Mendoza talking about her new novel Sanctuary. “There’s nothing better than laughing, crying, and feeling butterflies in your stomach as you read a romance novel. If you’re a fan of the genre, you probably have certain romance novels you love reading over and over again. However, it may be time to fall in love with a fresh set of characters, so we suggest you dive in to all the new romance novels slated for release during 2020. Between star-crossed lovers, love triangles, and the enemies-to-lovers trope, there are so many different stories to sweep you off your feet. We know you’ve got plenty of room in your heart for them all, so let’s take a look at 20 of the hottest romance novels of 2020.”Maybe the apocalypse has you reaching instead for smooching books, in which case here are 20 from this year. “The first big secret I ever learned was on the night I found my Daddy dead, crammed in the little space where my old bike’s training wheels turned rusted. I hadn’t ever seen a dead body before, cept one funeral when all I really saw was one dead arm folded cross a still chest, cause Momma ain’t let me get close; and sometimes, too, in the cop shows Momma loved to watch before bed and I snuck and watched, pretending to sleep, tucked between Momma’s bony elbow and fast beating chest. But Daddy was different. His skin, once deep brown, had turned dull gray like the sky when it rains and rains, and the sun hides behind full clouds til it’s too late to go out and play.”Phoebe Robinson has announced the first two books her imprint will publish and you can read an excerpt from one, What the Fireflies Knew by Kai Harris.
