Four of us. Lourdes, María, Cora, Lucia. We had once been five, before Graciela left us. All of these cuentos belong to us. Trust us when we take your hands.

Graciela is raised in the shadow of El Salvador’s Izalco volcanos, dusty-kneed and bound closely to her friends. Her life changes entirely when a messenger from the Capital comes to claim her. At nine years old she has been selected to work as an oracle to the country’s fearsome dictator, who believes she is a muse capable of foreseeing the future of El Salvador.

Brought to the city, far from her mother and friends, Graciela is introduced to Consuelo, the sister she’s never known. Consuelo is wilful, talented and desirous, and despite their differences the girls are a small fortress within the dictator’s regime.

La Matanza – the brutal massacre that tore through El Salvador in 1932 – will change their lives, and their country, forever. But neither ever gives up hope that they might be reunited once more. Narrated by a chorus of victims of the massacre – ghost girls who have died, but who have not yet finished telling their story — The Volcano Daughters is an unforgettable story about resilience, reinvention and sisterhood.

A gripping and spellbinding novel about a sisterhood ripped apart by violence, narrated by a ghostly chorus. An unforgettable debut. — Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half