Tocayos

Jose Miguel gets what he wants. By charming, persuading, conning, or bullying his affluent family and friends, as well as the dedicated teachers at his exclusive Catholic school for boys in Lima, he bends the world to his will. Until he is frozen in place by the startling presence of Joe the American. Unable to dominate the combative New Yorker, Jose Miguel decides to unlock the American’s power by becoming his friend.

As Jose Miguel introduces Joe the American to the pleasures of his homeland, a genuine friendship forms between them. But when his hometown and the lovely Milagros fall in love with his American friend, Jose Miguel's friendship dissolves into a bitter, but secret rivalry. Unable, at first, to check Joe’s growing popularity, he discovers a devastating secret about Joe’s father and sets in motion a plot to undo the American and recover what is rightfully his.

Tocayos and Resaca, parts One and Two of this story, are set in the monster surf outside the pastel-painted fishing villages of Peru’s coastline, in the barriadas that surround Lima, among the barren mountain towns of the Andes, and in the haciendas of its coastal desert. Together they tell a story of passion and betrayal, of rivalry and redemption, and of a boy who must choose how he will become a man.