Social Issues, Family, Emigrants & Immigrants, Grief & Loss, Romance, Depression & Mental Health, Science Fiction, Violence 

The Grief Keeper is a tender tale of heartbreak and healing in a frighteningly possible world where both love and human beings are branded illegal. 

Seventeen-year-old Marisol has always dreamed of being American--of living a life like the characters on Cedar Hollow, her favorite American television show. She never pictured fleeing her home in El Salvador under threat of death and stealing across the US border as "an illegal"--but after her brother is murdered and her younger sister Gabi's life is placed in equal jeopardy, she has no choice, especially because she knows everything is all her fault. If she had never fallen for the charms of a beautiful girl, her mother wouldn't be in hiding and she and Gabi wouldn't now be detained by the United States government.

Consumed by her guilt, Marisol jumps at an unusual opportunity to stay in the United States. She agrees to become a grief keeper, someone who takes the grief of another into her own body, relieving them of their pain as she lives through it. It's a risky, experimental study, but if it means keeping Gabi safe, Marisol will do anything. She just never imagined one of the risks would be falling in love.