Sandra Benitez

Award-winning local author Benitez has found much inspiration in her dual Latin American and Midwestern heritage, and her books have a way of persuading you to cheer for both sides of the story. Her latest, Night of the Radishes, ought to please fans of her earlier, critically acclaimed novels, like The Weight of All Things. Spurred into a search for her long-lost brother whose whereabouts she knows only from postcards, outwardly happy mother and wife Annie comes to realize that her tragic childhood has left her with deep and unhealed wounds. Her search brings her to the Mexican city of Oaxaca (whose vegetable-inspired Christmas celebration gives the book its title and setting) and the arms of a kindly professor. Since we’re smack in the middle of the coldest, darkest moment of winter right now, it’s hard for us to imagine why someone might go to a nice tropical climate and then bother to come back, but the power of good literature is that it compels you to imagine worlds where such things are possible. Ruminator, 1648 Grand Ave., St. Paul, (651) 699-0587, www.ruminator.com; Barnes & Noble, Galleria, 3225 W. 69th St., Edina, (952) 920-0633, www.bn.com