“Two sisters find very different destinies in Francesca G. Varela’s novel Blue Mar. Laurel and Paloma have never been to El Salvador, where their beloved Abuelo grew up; gang wars fueled by climate change have made Central America too dangerous to visit. After Abuelo’s unexpected death, they decide to go anyway. While spending the summer on their family’s farm—now endangered by flooding and extreme weather—both women find new perspectives on climate change, and new dreams to fight for. The relationship between Laurel and Paloma is complex. While not estranged, they struggle to connect. Laurel is enthralled by a corporation’s failed attempt to turn plastic waste into an island resort, and how the place has become a rallying point for environmental activists seeking to build a self-sufficient utopia. Meanwhile, Paloma, who thought she had her future all figured out, now questions her plans in light of worsening climate change. The gap between the sisters widens thanks to their differing views on cultural identity, the human toll of climate change, and what humans owe to each other and the world. The story’s poignancy is enhanced by its familiarity: though set in an unspecified future, the picture it paints of a world choking on plastic, droughts, wildfires, new diseases, and rising ocean levels is an eerie echo of current events. The world Laurel and Paloma inhabit—and the decisions they make—will very soon be a reality for too many people. Blue Mar’s ultimate message, however, is not one of despair. On the contrary, it shows that, even in hopelessness, there is hope—but it must be earned, not given. Filled with poetic turns of phrase and foreboding visuals, Blue Mar is a science fiction novel about awakening to the reality that everyone is responsible for humanity’s well-being.” — Edith Gonzalez, Foreword Review — “Francesca Varela gives us a perceptive look at the near future in her latest book, Blue Mar. The characters navigate their way through a world of plastic islands and Mars exploration, but also a world that still eats pizza and practices yoga. This nearness gives Varela’s work a feeling of absolute reality. Food ethics and new diseases will not suddenly become issues of the past over the next century, even if we have virtual reality glasses, and we will always yearn for the sea.” — Eric D. Lehman, author of 9 Lupine Road — Award-winning environmentalist-author Francesca Varela’s fourth novel, Blue Mar, is set in a near-future United States and Central America. But it is a story very much concerned with the past—what it can teach us, what we have lost from it, and how it can help guide us forward. Sisters Paloma and Laurel Monti can trace part of their family back to El Salvador. One of their grandfathers, whom they call by the Spanish equivalent, Abuelo, manages the local slaughterhouse. Laurel works in the office. His wisdom and memories of bygone days, both in his adopted home of California and before that, back in El Salvador, sustain his two granddaughters. More than that, what he knows forms a strong contrast to the high-tech present affected by climate change. It is not only about temperature and weather patterns; the modern world the family navigates contains GMO animals, an ocean filled with more plastic garbage than fish, strange diseases, rising sea levels, and vanishing cropland. It also features Blue Mar, a large artificial island composed of waste plastic. After Abuelo’s death, the sisters decide to visit El Salvador, where they stay with another elder, their great-aunt Roberta. And it is from there that the sisters lives diverge for good. Laurel decides to move to Blue Mar after it has been taken over by a group of do-gooders as a kind of refuge from the ravages of climate change. Paloma stays behind in the village, where she debates whether to start medical school, and learns how to plant local land races of basic crops. Blue Mar is not what Laurel expects, and tragedy ensues when the weather turns. Varela’s story moves at a tidy pace, and her characters are vividly drawn, likeable, and believable. The matter of being of mixed blood—mestizo/a—commands a large part of each sister’s internal conflict, and much of the dialogue as well. That it takes up so much of the novel suggests that a sense of one’s place in a culture means as much as a sense of being safe in one’s place. The divide between whites and Hispanics in the Americas reaches all the way down to the individual level: one person can also feel divided against herself, genetically and culturally, like Laurel, who looks white. What are the implications for the natural world, if humans cannot even bridge the gap between groups—if humans create such groups at all? Varela richly describes the natural world, especially in the El Salvador scenes, and her use of fiction as a vehicle for environmental activism is balanced and powerful. But she focuses on racial injustice and the human costs of inequity most of all. Whether it is at the slaughterhouse, in the village in El Salvador, or even in the settlement on the plastic island, it is the poor who tend to get the short end of the stick. Blue Mar shows us that even the best intentions inevitably lead to further exploitation of racialized peoples and the natural world. The problems suffered by the Monti family and their community in the near future hold a mirror to what is happening everywhere right now.” — Louise Fabiani, naturalist, environmental writer, cultural critic — “In Blue Mar, Francesa G. Varela continues to deliver on the promise shown in Call of the Sun Child and previous work. As if torn from today’s headlines, she delves into contemporary climate change issues such as plastic pollution, human migration, food production, genetic manipulation of nonhuman animals, and of course the worsening impacts of climate change in ways that humanize the problem. Simultaneously, Varela creates a tension in Laurel’s sense of identity as Laurel develops an awareness of the complexity of her blended ethnicities and histories, leading her to discover where her true allegiances and family roots might lie. An excellent addition to the expanding literature of climate fiction.” — William Huggins, author of Ghosts —

“Barren fields and rising seas juxtapose with iridescent birds, sugar cane and bougainvillea in Francesca G. Varela’s Blue Mar. In Laurel and Paloma’s world, hope, the color of turquoise, is marketed as an island of plastic, crafted from remnants of Barbie dolls and Ziplock bags. But what might our protagonists lose in gaining a spot on this veritable lifeboat? In a world of uncertainty – and the author hints that the world may have always been just that – lies an invitation to find one’s footing in the unchangeable, in that which always was and always will be. Laurel senses in the humidity and storm clouds, ‘the full width of the ocean carried in each gust and unfurled onto sand, and concrete and coconut palms. This was the air of her ancestors.’ Blue Mar speaks to the balance between placing our hope in human ingenuity, and surrendering to the comfort of human connection. The proposition, irresistible because we have no choice: ‘We will at least be together when…’” — Margaret Hetherman, science writer and futurist — “Blue Mar is a rare climate fiction novel, one woven through the emotional register of two sisters facing a world in crisis. Francesca Varela's writing is luminous and powerful, transporting readers to a not-so-distant future where the worries that plague our planet now have only been exacerbated by human greed and disbelief. The book feautures the kind of worldbuilding that is both ubiquitous and effortless, where readers are likely to forget they're reading a book with science fiction elements because they're so enraptured by the characters' stories. A powerful meditation on meaning and family set against the backdrop of a world racked by climate catastrophe. A work of climate fiction for our times.” — S.E. Fleenor, managing editor of Bella Media Channel — “Francesca G. Varela’s compelling cli-fi novel, Blue Mar, presents a harrowing glimpse into a future where current global efforts to slow the effects of climate change are insufficient. The oceans are overwhelmed with plastic debris, wildfires rage in the droughts of California, the US east coast is drenched in torrential flooding, and there simply isn’t enough food for everyone. A wealthy company, Lustro Corp, builds an artificial island out of plastic, called Blue Mar, with the intention of turning it into a resort for the wealthy elite. Sisters Laurel and Paloma watch on, incredulous, as their worlds crumble around them. Paloma’s just graduated from college and has a partial scholarship to med school, but she isn’t even sure she wants to go—not when it’ll take another decade of schooling and residencies before she can make an impact in the world around her. She needs time and space to think. Meanwhile, Laurel’s supposed to take over the family business at the local slaughterhouse, which was recently bought out by a big company looking to make major changes with GMOs and automation against her Abuelo’s wishes. When Laurel and Paloma’s beloved Abuelo dies of a new, untreatable illness (not unlike the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19) and Laurel’s promotion goes to her boyfriend instead of her, the young women escape to El Salvador to find themselves on their family’s land. As they live on Tia Roberta’s finca and struggle with their meager Spanish, Paloma and Laurel discover how much of the country has changed from the stories their Abuelo told them. So much has been wrecked by rising sea levels, pollution, and increasing stratification between the wealthy and los pobres that some people are becoming desperate. So desperate, in fact, that environmentalists come to El Salvador looking for volunteers to live on Blue Mar, the now-bankrupt project turned into a haven for refugees. Anyone desperate for change is eligible to live there, so Laurel finds herself boarding the ship for the hopeful plastic island while Paloma stays behind. As the novel unfurls, the sisters encounter both love and loss as their struggles grow to be bigger than themselves. It’s sometimes a bit disorienting to read a novel that was written before the COVID- 19 pandemic--but takes place in the future. The absence of masks in public places, any instance of strangers gathering, and insufficient personal protective equipment worn by characters often set of alarms of false!, wrong!, or clearly, this is a different timeline! But in Blue Mar, Francesca G. Varela gets so much of it right. In a dual-voiced narrative that is both heartbreaking and hopeful, Varela crafts a compelling story following two half- Salvadorian women, lost and adrift in a changing world struggling to keep up with the effects of global climate change. Extreme weather, mystery illnesses, and people protesting for a better future—they’re all reflected in the worldbuilding of this book. Varela’s imagery is rich with color and texture. Her keen attention to detail, from the sooty air during wildfire season to the spongy terrain of the old-growth rainforest, enhance the story and offer an additional level of escapism for the reader to enjoy. Occasional lapses into Spanglish are genuine, enriching the narrative voices of both protagonists without being cumbersome to readers unfamiliar with the vocabulary. Both Laurel and Paloma come across as authentic and imperfect, struggling with their identities in ways that other ‘passing’ children of the Latinx diaspora (such as myself) can easily recognize and empathize with. In a climax that is as surprising as it is inevitable, Varela delivers a powerful message about risk and reward when an uncertain future is on the line. As I read Blue Mar, I caught myself nodding, yes, yes, así es como es. That’s the way it is. And that’s the way it may be. Varela delivers a cautionary tale of a dark future, but not without its bright spots. It is a rare talent to successfully pair such a realistically bleak outlook for the future with genuine potential for hope and healing. With so much to unpack and discuss in this novel, and its impetus for the ways we may (or may not) control our own futures, Blue Mar should be required reading for everyone.” — Leslie Salas, editor of Other Orlandos —

Publisher: Owl House Books (March 16, 2021) Wholesale Orders: homeboundpublications.com/contact-us

Paperback: 280 pages ISBN-10: 194700364X / ISBN-13: 978-1947003644

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