Crime, corruption, and colonialism–as well as compassion, survival, and dark humor–are woven into The Puerto Rico Trilogy, which consists of three separate character-driven novels that focus on the Caribbean island and its complex political and social relationship with the U.S.

The Defining Sea. book two, was also sparked by U.S.-Puerto Rico history. Its plot is derived from the U.S, Navy’s decades-long live fire and bombing exercises on the inhabited offshore Puerto Rico island of Vieques, which caused death and serious illness. The story told concerns a 20-year-old University of Puerto Rico student who delivers drugs between the island and the states to raise money for a scholarship that will be named after his girlfriend, killed by police during a protest against the Navy’s maneuvers.