A riveting, gorgeously written debut novel—a contemporary Romeo and Juliet saga with great emotional power, set in Haiti during the 2010 earthquake and its aftermath.

When we first meet Zwazo Delalun—Zo—he is a young orphan in a fishing village, learning to swim, harvest almond trees, and cut cane. Resourceful and strong, he grows up fast, finding work wherever he can, apprenticing himself to fishermen and vendors and a series of women who teach him his most valuable lessons about romance. One morning, while hauling cement under the broiling sun, he meets Anaya, a beautiful nursing student who is sipping cherry juice under a tree. Their attraction is instantaneous, fierce. Anaya uses her knowledge of medicine to cure Zo of the malaria that’s plagued him for months, even as she intoxicates him with a love more potent than any he could have imagined.

But Anaya’s father cannot accept that a poor, uneducated man such as Zo is good enough for his daughter. To avoid his watchful eye, Zo and Anaya escape to the hills outside Port-au-Prince. There, Anaya continues her education and Zo finds a job with an enterprising old cart-runner, and they are happy, until the unthinkable happens: a massive earthquake churns the ground beneath the capital city. Zo watches as apartment buildings, churches, and the nursing school—where Anaya is—are reduced to rubble in a searing instant. Bargaining against all odds, fueled by hope and adrenaline, he makes a life-risking decision to try to find her.

Suspenseful, heartrending, and written in lyrical prose, Zo captures the splendor of Haiti at a moment of historic crisis and transformation, as it tells an unforgettable, timeless story of love.