Books

The Good Sister is available at bookstores across Canada, amazon.ca, and other online retailers worldwide.

Winner of the HarperCollins/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction

Just shy of her fifteenth birthday, Gabriela Amador Prieto has been cast out of the family home by her father for tarnishing the family honour. All traces of her are brutally erased, and not even Lucy, Gabi’s older sister and best friend, knows where she is. Furious at her father and desperate to find her sister, Lucy leaves their small town in Baja California, Mexico, and sets out for the capital to track Gabriela down.

Lucy ventures deep into Mexico City’s most dangerous neighbourhoods, coming face to face with the dark underbelly of the city, while back at home her family members—her parents, her brothers, and her devious brother-in-law, Antonio—struggle with their own complicity in Gabi’s fate.

Winner of the HarperCollins/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction, The Good Sister is an urgent, timely, and moving exploration of betrayal and steadfast devotion, and the ways in which our own intolerance can harm what—and who—we love most.

Critical Praise

“A gripping, thoroughly researched novel about sexual double standards, Mexico City’s sex trade and Lucy’s quest to find her sister.” —The Globe and Mail

“From the stirring opening scene, where every trace of fifteen-year-old Gabriela is being excised from her family home, readers’ eyes and hearts are opened to all the woe and splendor of a struggling family. The Good Sister offers a unique, unflinching story of contemporary Mexico.”
—Cathy Marie Buchanan, author of The Painted Girls

“A gripping debut novel: exotic, authentic and entirely relatable. A ripping good read that will grab you from the first page and leave you thinking about it long after you finish.”
—Daniel Kalla, author of The Far Side of the Sky

“Chelsea Bolan has conjured a morality tale for the ages, a hair-raising and courageous journey through el México profundo—the deep Mexico—that’s as gripping and hopeful as the land itself. An enchanting book.”  —Oakland Ross, author of The Dark Virgin

“Confident, brave, violent, terrifying, gorgeous and a true exploration of the relationships between sisters, between family, and how all these characters cope with a terrible choice.”
—Alice Kuipers, author of The Worst Thing She Ever Did

“Ambitious and heartbreaking.”  —Winnipeg Free Press

“…an intricately crafted and immensely captivating debut…Both a heartwarming tale of sisterly love and devotion and a cautionary tale about intolerance and double standards, The Good Sister is a suspenseful, insightful and overall very enjoyable read.”  —The Ubyssey