Sacrifice on the Border

When Yoali's child is torn from her arms as she crosses the river that divides México and the U.S., she begins a desperate search for him on both sides of the border. As she and Frank, the policeman who loves her pursue the trafficker who has kidnapped the boy we realize that the challenges they face aren't so different from those real life migrants face as they make the crossing in search of a better life. This is a gripping love and adventure story interwoven with dark themes of violence, corruption, and drug trafficking, but most of all child trafficking.

Yoali's world is forever changed when her young son Elisito is torn from her arms as she crosses the Rio Grande into the U.S. Elisito's father, the drug trafficker Guayo has stolen the child to sell on the black market. Guayo tells Yoali the child has drowned but she doesn't believe it and swears she'll find him. She sets out on a desperate search on both sides of the border, joined by Frank, a policeman willing to risk his career to help her. Meanwhile, Elisito is being kept by Coyota, a trafficker who works with Guayo and who's been told to hold the boy till he can be sold to an adoptive family. When the cartel changes plans and decides to market the boy for his body parts instead, Coyota wants no part of it. She's begun to care for Elisito and so decides to save him. She and Gato, a fellow trafficker with a heart, escape with the child south of the border. Yoali and Frank set off on a motorcycle on the heels of Coyota. The couple is joined by the Osos, a biker family who says they know the safest routes through drug-infested territory. But there is no safe passage. While on their agonizing search, Yoali and Frank encounter friendships and treachery, goodness and malevolence, despair and magic... and also find each other. Guayo has been taken to a migrant center and so must postpone his revenge. However, his cartel bosses are furious the boy is gone and put pressure on Guayo to find him. Guayo makes a daring escape and heads south to hunt down Coyota and the child. Destiny brings all the characters, good and evil, back to Yoali's hometown of Queseria. There, her family and her community will fight to save Elisito from the worst of fates. "Sacrifice on the Border: A mother searches for her stolen child" is a gripping love and adventure story, interwoven with the dark themes of violence, corruption, and drug trafficking, but most of all child trafficking. The characters each tell their own version of events, moving the storyline forward to the heart wrenching finale.

Cecilia Domeyko was born in Chile and spent her childhood traveling to various parts of the world where she came in contact with a wide array of Latin American people and cultures. She had a long career as a news reporter, documentary filmmaker and scriptwriter. Among her important works directed at the Latino community is a bilingual campaign in which she wrote 55 ficcional programs that aired for a decade on Univision in the US and on Spanish CNN in 18 Latin American countries. The campaign won over 30 top film awards. The research for this long project for which she interviewed hundreds of migrant famliies and gathered important information about their challenges, hopes and dreams led to the writing of Sacrifice on the Border, a gripping story in which a child is stolen by his own father, an organ traficker who plans to sell the boy on the black market. The book is a riveting adventure and love story rolled into one, which keeps readers on their toes from beginning to end.