Starvation, shattered dreams and stolen children—these horrors reign supreme in “The Fountains of Silence,” Ruta Sepetys’ gorgeous and haunting portrait of post-civil war Spain. The story follows Daniel Matheson, an aspiring photojournalist and the son of a wealthy Texas oilman, and Ana Torres Moreno, an orphaned Spanish maid, as they fall in love and reconcile their vastly different backgrounds. Told in the same rich and lyrical prose of her earlier books, Sepetys juxtaposes American freedom and privilege with the poverty and suffering of the Francoist dictatorship, creating an atmospheric and nuanced story of love, fear and strength in the face of oppression. 

This book gracefully weaves together perspectives and storylines to create a final product of astonishing complexity, one of beauty and terror, of heartbreak and happy endings. Sepetys has delivered yet another modern classic, a masterpiece that is, at its core, palpably human. “The Fountains of Silence” is more than a novel—it is an experience to be savored, and once one reads it, it is impossible to forget.