"This is a story about Claire, a young, struggling New Yorker whose understanding of life changes after a group of older and wiser Latina women bring her into a close-knit circle: their Upper West Side tertulia. Every third Sunday of the month they come together for an afternoon of revelry, at which delicious food and strong opinions are served up in equal measure.

At the tertulia no subject goes unexplored, from health and nutrition to romance and heartbreak; from motherhood and beauty to work, Old World traditions, and urban anxieties. Through the recollections and counsel of these intelligent, independent women - among them a retired pharmacist from Puerto Rico, a Mexican doctor, a Peruvian chef, and an Argentine professor of literature - Claire comes to know their diverse, exotic, and sometimes contradictory attitudes about the female experience.".

"As the conversation glides along with the spontaneity of an improvised song, Claire slowly begins to see the trials in her own personal and professional life through a prism more poetic and worldly. And, as the tertulia sizzles with anecdotes, gossip, and lore, Claire also becomes aware of the nuances that shade and distinguish Latin American history and tradition, from Mexico and the Andean plateau to the Southern Cone and Caribbean islands."--BOOK JACKET.