A group of young women from Smith College risk their lives in France at the height of World War I in this sweeping novel based on a true story --- a skillful blend of "Call the Midwife" and THE ALICE NETWORK --- from New York Times bestselling author Lauren Willig.

A group of young women from Smith College risk their lives in France at the height of World War I in this sweeping novel based on a true story --- a skillful blend of "Call the Midwife" and THE ALICE NETWORK --- from New York Times bestselling author Lauren Willig.

A group of young women from Smith College risk their lives in France at the height of World War I in this sweeping novel based on a true story --- a skillful blend of "Call the Midwife" and THE ALICE NETWORK --- from New York Times bestselling author Lauren Willig.

A scholarship girl from Brooklyn, Kate Moran thought she found a place among Smith’s Mayflower descendants, only to have her illusions dashed the summer after graduation. When charismatic alumna Betsy Rutherford delivers a rousing speech at the Smith College Club in April of 1917, looking for volunteers to help French civilians decimated by the German war machine, Kate is too busy earning her living to even think of taking up the call. But when her former best friend, Emmeline Van Alden, reaches out and begs her to take the place of a girl who had to drop out, Kate reluctantly agrees to join the new Smith College Relief Unit.

Four months later, Kate and 17 other Smithies, including two trailblazing female doctors, set sail for France. The volunteers are armed with money, supplies and good intentions --- all of which immediately go astray. The chateau that was to be their headquarters is a half-burnt ruin. The villagers they meet are in desperate straits: women and children huddling in damp cellars, their crops destroyed and their wells poisoned. 

Despite constant shelling from the Germans, French bureaucracy and the threat of being ousted by the British army, the Smith volunteers bring welcome aid --- and hope --- to the region. But can they survive their own differences? As they cope with the hardships and terrors of the war, Kate and her colleagues find themselves navigating old rivalries and new betrayals that threaten the very existence of the Unit.

With the Germans threatening to break through the lines, can the Smith Unit pull together and truly be a band of sisters?

For readers of Valeria Luiselli and Edwidge Danticat, INFINITE COUNTRY is an urgent and lyrical novel about a Colombian family fractured by deportation, offering an intimate perspective on an experience that so many have endured --- and are enduring right now.

For readers of Valeria Luiselli and Edwidge Danticat, INFINITE COUNTRY is an urgent and lyrical novel about a Colombian family fractured by deportation, offering an intimate perspective on an experience that so many have endured --- and are enduring right now.

For readers of Valeria Luiselli and Edwidge Danticat, an urgent and lyrical novel about a Colombian family fractured by deportation, offering an intimate perspective on an experience that so many have endured --- and are enduring right now.

Talia is being held at a correctional facility for adolescent girls in the forested mountains of Colombia after committing an impulsive act of violence that may or may not have been warranted. She urgently needs to get out and get back home to Bogotá, where her father and a plane ticket to the United States are waiting for her. If she misses her flight, she also might miss her chance to finally be reunited with her family in the north.

How this family came to occupy two different countries, two different worlds, comes into focus like twists of a kaleidoscope. We see Talia’s parents, Mauro and Elena, fall in love in a market stall as teenagers against a backdrop of civil war and social unrest. We see them leave Bogotá with their firstborn, Karina, in pursuit of safety and opportunity in the United States on a temporary visa, and we see the births of two more children, Nando and Talia, on American soil. We witness the decisions and indecisions that lead to Mauro’s deportation and the family’s splintering --- the costs they’ve all been living with ever since.

Award-winning, internationally acclaimed author Patricia Engel, herself a dual citizen and the daughter of Colombian immigrants, gives voice to all five family members as they navigate the particulars of their respective circumstances. And all the while, the metronome ticks: Will Talia make it to Bogotá in time? And if she does, can she bring herself to trade the solid facts of her father and life in Colombia for the distant vision of her mother and siblings in America?

Rich with Bogotá urban life, steeped in Andean myth and tense with the daily reality of the undocumented in America, INFINITE COUNTRY is the story of two countries and one mixed-status family --- for whom every triumph is stitched with regret, and every dream pursued bears the weight of a dream deferred.