Jeanine Cummins’ American Dirt follows Lydia Perez a bookshop owner from Mexico. Lydia had the perfect family with her fearless journalist of a husband and eight-year-old son Luca. When a bullet tears the family apart though, Lydia has no choice but to flee her home, a city in the grip of a drug cartel, with her son by her side. Heading north for the border, the journey isn’t a dangerous one but Lydia is prepared to make sacrifices to keep them both alive.