A FLOWER TRAVELED IN MY BLOOD: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children

A FLOWER TRAVELED IN MY BLOOD: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children
HALEY COHEN GILLILAND
Avid Reader Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

FINALIST FOR THE 2026 PULITZER PRIZE FOR GENERAL NONFICTION!!

Time's The 100 Must-Read Books of 2025 selection

One of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2025!

One of BookPage's 10 Best Books of 2025!

A New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2025 selection

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: For readers of Say Nothing and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the epic, true story of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, grandmothers who fought to find their stolen grandchildren during Argentina’s brutal dictatorship.

In the early hours of March 24th, 1976, the streets of Buenos Aires rumbled with tanks as soldiers seized the presidential palace, overthrowing Argentina’s leader. To many, it seemed like just another coup in a continent troubled by them, amid political violence and Cold War tensions. But there was something darker about this new regime. Quietly supported by the United States and much of Argentina itself, which was sick of constant bombings and gunfights, the junta quickly launched the “National Reorganization Process” or El Proceso—a bland name masking their ruthless campaign to crush the political left and instill the country with “Western, Christian” values. The dictatorship, which continued until 1983, decimated a generation.

One of the military’s most diabolical acts was the disappearance of hundreds of pregnant women. Patricia Roisinblit was among them, a mother and leftist revolutionary labeled “subversive” and abducted while eight months pregnant with her second child. Patricia gave birth in captivity, making one last call to her mother, Rosa, before vanishing. Her newborn son was also taken, one of hundreds given to police, military families, and dictatorship supporters, while their biological parents were secretly executed and their bodies disposed of. For Rosa and the other mothers in her same situation, the loss was unimaginable; their only solace was the hope that their grandchildren were still alive. United by this faith, a group of fierce grandmothers formed the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, dedicated to finding the stolen children and seeking justice from a nation that betrayed them.

A Flower Traveled in My Blood is Rosa and the Abuelas’ extraordinary story, told by a journalist with unique access. With authority and compassion, Haley Cohen Gilliland brings this tale to life, tracing the lives of Patricia, Rosa, and her stolen grandson, Guillermo. As the Abuelas transform into detectives, they confront military officers, sift through government documents, assume aliases to see suspected grandchildren, and even pioneer a groundbreaking genetics test with an American scientist.

A compelling mystery and deeply researched account of a pivotal era in world history, A Flower Traveled in My Blood takes readers on a journey of love, resilience, and redemption, revealing new truths about memory, identity, and family.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: It took me almost three months to read this book. Yes, it's over five hundred pages; I can do that much reading in a day; the reason it's taken me so long is purely emotional.

This horror is another example of why the Global Right is really the international fascist front. There is no hiding from the fact the US government is riddled with people who supported the perpetrators of the heinous, nauseating crimes Author Cohen Gilliland details. And no, the argument that they did not know what was happening is not true...I refer you to the astonishingly and damningly complete endnotes. Not one thing in this book is unsourced. The perpetrators' voices are unheard, though not for lack of trying on her part. Had I done any of these things, I don't know I'd've been willing to talk on the record about them.

Anyone who heard about "Alligator Alcatraz" and did not instantly go into resistance mode needs to read this book. This is what happens when fascist scum grab power. If you can read this and NOT think "I've got to do something, anything, to oppose this publicly", I'm ashamed for and of you. Not reading it is cowardly.

If that sounds like I'm judging you, you're right. I am.

It's long past time to coddle yourself. I assure you, if you think you and yours are safe, they are not. No one's "guilt" matters to people like this.

I was clear about why Author Cohen Gilliland chose to refer to the Madres and the Abuelas by first names, both her stated one of not having confusingly common last names on the page and her unstated one of creating greater intimate connection with them, but it felt more confusing for me. A reporter for The Economist is not going to be so inexperienced as to not think of that; it actually works to increase my readerly investment because it hammers into my brain the Everywoman who went on the Plaza to hold up signs, photographs, and stand there utterly exposed to the unpredictable actions of the gun-wielders was each of these enraged grieving mothers and grandmothers.

Read this story, then resist actively the actions of ICEstapo.

CAPTAIN KIDD: A True Story of Treasure and Betrayal, past as prologue?

CAPTAIN KIDD: A True Story of Treasure and Betrayal
SAMUEL MARQUIS
Diversion Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$34.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The breakneck adventure of war, romance, politics, and betrayal, where noble gentleman privateer William Kidd becomes a scapegoat, and Crown and crew sink to unfathomable depths to brand him pirate enemy #1.

Captain William Kidd stands as one of the most notorious “pirate” outlaws ever, but his notorious legend is tainted by a bed of lies. Captain Kidd has captivated imaginations for over three hundred years and inspired many stories about pirates, but was he really a criminal? Just how many ships did he plunder, how many men did he force to walk the plank, and how many throats did he slit? Or is the truth more inconvenient, that he was a buccaneer’s worst nightmare, a revered pirate hunter turned fall guy for scheming politicians?

In Captain Kidd, his ninth-great-grandson, writer Samuel Marquis, reveals the real story. Kidd was an English-American privateer and leading New York husband and father, dubbed “trusty and well-beloved” by the King of England himself and described by historians as a “worthy, honest-hearted, steadfast, much-enduring sailor” who was the “victim of a deliberate travesty of justice.” With honors far more esteemed than the menacing Blackbeard or any other sea rover at the turn of the seventeenth century, how can Kidd be considered both gentleman and pirate, both hero and villain?

Marquis’ biography clears the foggy haze of five centuries of legend and British propaganda to illuminate the seafaring adventurer and civic leader. He scrupulously recreates Kidd’s perilous world of explosive naval warfare, the daring integrity he exemplified as a pirate hunter, and the political scandal that entangled Kidd in British-American history, rocking the New World and the Old and threatening England’s valuable trade with India.

Captain Kidd is both thrilling and tragic. Behind the legend is a real man woven into the tapestry of early America, rendering him a unique colonial hero and scapegoat, whose life story was fascinating, exciting, bizarre, and heartrending.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: From "privateer" (government-endorsed pirate) to "pirate" (privateer who pissed someone powerful off), Captain Kidd really comes alive in his ninth(!)-great-grandson's retelling of his biography. It's quite a tale indeed. Even sticking to well-attested facts in court records and sources of like stature, it reads like a novel.

That is not an indictment of the author's veracity but a comment on his story's narrative flow. The endnotes, hugely extensive, are not included in the ebook. They are redirected to the publisher's website via a link or a QR code, both of which I followed to be sure they went where I expected them to go. I'm mildly disgruntled by this.It is a decision that, I suppose, stems from the publisher's presumption that most people don't give a toss about endnotes, so why not...what? does it cost less to do it this way? is the same thing done in the print book?...anyway, it cost the book a star.

While the horror of what happened to Kidd was in no way acceptable to modern eyes, neither were his actions. A privateer might be commissioned by the government of the day to do damage to others' economic well-being, that kind of mercenary fig-leaf is seen in today's world as dishonest whole and entire. It still happens, especially where official government involvement in an activity would cause major PR problems (as ICE is demonstrating very capably right now), but we can ignore it until someone gets pissed off who has the power to make the one they're mad at suffer the consequences widely spreadable.

Any of this ringing some bells?

Kidd's execution was awful to read about, again because the author's storytelling chops are very much on display. It is amazing how much documentary evidence, anecdotal or not, still exists about Kidd. Author Marquis has, I am morally certain, clapped eyes on every single extant source for this grisly tale. It is a feat that took decades, and determination far greater than the ordinary, to accomplish. That he is a descendant of the man unjustly accused, and hanged—twice!—no doubt turbocharged his natural-to-writers research skills. What made it fun to read was both the subject matter...what little boy, however old he may be, isn't delighted by a pirate story?...and knowing while reading it that the author's telling a true family tale.

Maps, and notes, added to the text and I'd be warbling my fool lungs out about the story. as it is, I/ recommend you procure one if you're a superannuated pirate-loving kid like me, or if your dad/grandpa is, or if you're in the market for a story of government-by-grumpiness story to make today feel a tiny bit less unprecedented.

You might not feel better but knowing it's happened before has much to teach us.