Salt and Sugar

Two teenagers whose families run rival bakeries must team up to preserve their businesses in Carvalho’s quotidian, Brazil-set rom-com debut. Seventeen-year-old Larissa “Lari” Ramires has always known she was meant to take over Salt, her family’s savory-dessert-focused bakery, which has been passed down for generations. But every time Lari tries to bake, “something really wrong” happens, leading her to believe she has no culinary skills, and no future at Salt. Grief over her beloved grandmother’s death, her mother’s insistence that she pursue a dreary career as an accountant, and competition from Sugar, the rival bakery across the street run by the Molinas, further complicate matters. When an elite supermarket chain threatens the livelihoods of all the small businesses in the area, Lari enlists 17-year-old Pedro Molina to help drive away the supermarket and keep their establishments running, but they’ll have to overcome their families’ prejudices against one another and navigate burgeoning romantic feelings of their own. Carvalho employs theatrical prose, familiar plot beats, telenovela-feeling dialogue, and an ebullient protagonist to examine themes of gentrification, grief, familial obligation, and rich entitlement, making for a charming read. Ages 13–up. Agent: Thao Le, Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. (Nov.)