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The Grasshopper Lost Its Wings
The Grasshopper Lost Its Wings is a historical fiction novel with strong elements of romance, immigrant drama, and political suspense. It follows Chapu, a poor young juice vendor in Mexico City, and Tere, a university student from a wealthier family, as their tender love story becomes tangled in class pressure, family expectations, the assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio, exile, guilt, and the long ache of becoming someone new in another country. At its heart, this is a story about love, survival, and the heavy cost of chasing a life that keeps asking you to leave pieces of yourself behind.
I liked the way the novel refuses to keep love simple. Chapu and Tere’s relationship begins with sweetness, saved parking spots, fresh juice, inside jokes, music, and that bright feeling of being seen. Then the world crowds in. Money matters. Class matters. Politics matters. Fear matters. I liked that the author lets those pressures build slowly instead of treating them like background noise. Mexico City feels alive in the book, full of traffic, food, myth, old wounds, family rules, and sudden beauty. The use of Mexica, Nahua, Totonac, and Mayan legends gives the story a larger shape, as if the characters are living inside both modern history and older stories about fate, sacrifice, transformation, and loss.
I also found the author’s choices ambitious, sometimes almost overflowing. The book moves from campus romance to political conspiracy to immigrant survival story, and that gives it a wide emotional range. Some scenes are intimate and warm, while others are tense, brutal, or deeply sad. Chapu’s journey in the United States was especially effective for me because it shows success as something complicated. He makes money. He builds a life. He finds chosen family. But he is still lonely, still afraid, still carrying Mexico in his bones. That felt honest. I did sometimes feel the novel wanted to do many things at once, but I also respected that largeness. Life is messy, and this book leans into the mess instead of smoothing it out.
I would recommend The Grasshopper Lost Its Wings to readers who enjoy historical fiction that blends romance, political history, family drama, and immigrant experience. It will especially appeal to readers interested in Mexico in the 1990s, cross-class love stories, and novels where personal choices are shaped by forces much larger than the characters themselves. This is not a light romance, even when it is romantic. It is a reflective, sorrowful, and heartfelt novel about what people survive, what they regret, and what they finally have to release.
Pages: 291 | ASIN : B0GRVPKKX6
Storytelling and Healing
Scarlet Birthright follows a young DJ in Trinidad who falls in love with a dancer who becomes pregnant and flees to America, leaving his daughter with a lifetime of questions and longing. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Scarlet Birthright is deeply personal—it’s autobiographical fiction born from my own experience. I was the love child of teenage parents, and my father left Trinidad when I was just a few months old. I grew up with my loving grandparents in Trinidad and Tobago while my father lived in America with his other family. This novella became my way of weaving together fact and fiction to explore that story, and ultimately, it helped me process and resolve the trauma of growing up with an absentee father. Writing this title was both an act of storytelling and a form of healing.
Were you able to achieve everything you wanted with the characters in the novel?
Mostly, yes. Since Scarlet Birthright unfolds through multiple perspectives, I felt I gave proper depth to the father, daughter, grandparents, and mother—each voice felt authentic and complete. However, I do wish I’d spent more time developing the stepmother’s character. Her story felt unfinished to me, which is why I ended up writing a separate short story dedicated entirely to her perspective. Sometimes characters demand more space than we initially give them.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The central theme became letting go of anger—a gift I didn’t realize I needed when I began writing. Through the process, I also explored the idea that perhaps we all do the best we can in any given moment. We’re imperfect humans making imperfect choices, often with limited information or emotional resources. There’s something both humbling and liberating about accepting that complexity in ourselves and others.
What is the next book that you’re working on, and when can your fans expect it out?
I’m working on “The Other Side of Love and Desire,” which will be the fullest exploration of themes that first emerged in my short story collection, Scarlet Yearnings: Stories of Love and Desire. It’s my way of diving deeper into those emotional territories that readers responded to most strongly. The book is scheduled for publication at the end of 2025 and will be available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and from all major book retailers.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website
🔥 A Life-Altering Spark: Witness the impulsive choice that sets Joromi on a collision course with family, identity, and legacy—its aftershocks echoing across decades.
🌴 Vivid Caribbean Setting: Immerse yourself in the lush beauty and folklore of Trinidad, where family legacies run deep as the island’s roots.
💔 Generations of Heartache: Follow Trisha’s poignant struggle to find her place—and finally confront the father she never knew.
✨ Ancestral Magic: Spirits, legends, and cultural traditions weave through every page, reminding us how the past guides our future.
💪 A Story of Hope & Redemption: Watch as one family’s destiny unfolds across decades and oceans, revealing the power of forgiveness and second chances.
Buy now to immerse yourself in a novel where passion transcends distance, heartbreak challenges fate, and one family’s destiny unfolds across oceans and decades.
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Scarlet Birthright: What They Left Behind
Scarlet Birthright is a raw, emotional novella about love, abandonment, regret, and redemption. Set between Trinidad and New York from the late 1960s to the early 1990s, it tells the story of Joromi, a young DJ whose summer romance leads to heartbreak, a hidden daughter, and lifelong consequences. Across shifting seasons and continents, James stitches together the lives of Joromi, Margaret, Trisha, and their families, weaving a tale about choices that echo through generations. It’s messy, real, and haunting in the best way.
One thing that hit me right off the bat was how vivid and alive the writing is. The first chapter, where Joromi meets her at the party, practically sizzled off the page. James doesn’t just tell you that he’s struck dumb; you feel the sweat, the frangipani scent, the pounding heart when the mystery girl with the Afro walks in. That attention to atmosphere is a real strength. It dragged me into the heat of Trinidad’s dry season without mercy. At times, the language was almost overwhelmingly rich, dense, and luxuriant, like indulging in a second slice of chocolate cake despite already being full, but ultimately, it remained deeply satisfying.
Emotionally, this book gutted me. Joromi’s slow-motion car crash of choices, breaking things off, lying to himself, chasing an American dream while abandoning his roots, felt so human it was painful. The scene where he learns about the death of Trisha’s mother broke me. He crumples onto the kitchen floor, and even though he deserves the gut punch, you can’t help but ache for him. James captures grief and guilt in a way that’s too real. It’s messy and selfish and confused, just like real people. That said, there were moments when I wanted to shake Joromi until his teeth rattled. I mean, come on, man, your daughter’s right there!
What stood out even more was the women. Margaret, in particular, was complicated and, frankly, sometimes pretty hard to like. But that’s what made her fascinating. When she tells Joromi, “Just don’t bring her into this house,” after learning about Trisha, my stomach twisted. I hated her. I understood her. James doesn’t try to make any woman a saint or a villain. They’re just…human, battered by life and culture and their own fears. It’s messy in a way that polished, sanitized novels rarely dare to be.
Scarlet Birthright is a story for anyone who knows that love isn’t always enough, that choices leave scars, and that healing takes more than just time; it takes courage. I’d especially recommend it to readers who like intergenerational family dramas, emotionally complex characters, and writing so lush it feels like stepping into another world. Bring tissues, and maybe a little grace for the characters you’ll love and hate all at once.
Pages: 179 | ASIN : B0DYYXKV5F
