An astonishing debut about a teenage girl in 1970s Brazil who is torn away from her twin sister—and who must learn what it means to fight for those she loves when all the odds are stacked against her.
Dolores and Mita grow up in rural Brazil, identical and inseparable. But Mita develops a mysterious illness that challenges the family. One day, Dolores wakes up to find her sister gone—sent to a hospital in their father’s native London. There is no Dolores without Mita. And now Mita is gone.
When the family moves to Rio, Dolores’ parents act as if Mita never existed. Lonely and grief-stricken, Dolores struggles to learn to read and write at the stodgy British School—until she meets Andrea, a headstrong, streetwise girl from the dangerous part of town. Andrea shows Dolores a new side of Rio—and how to survive it. As the dictatorship cracks down on dissenters, and people disappear, Dolores begins to wonder if her sister is dead, and her parents are lying. Determined to uncover the truth, Dolores is willing to do whatever it takes—lie, gamble and steal—to get her sister back.
Liar’s Dice captures the precarious intensity of coming of age in a volatile time—when repression and silence are the fabric of everyday life—and the cost of family secrets. Heartrending and tender, Juliet Faithfull’s debut novel is a testament to the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood.
“Liar's Dice is an unexpected take on the coming-of-age tale. This story of a girl’s separation from her ailing twin in 1970s Brazil is a nuanced exploration of family dynamics, sisterhood, and the search for belonging.”—Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake and Good Dirt
“An unsettling and beautifully written story about a family wrestling with truth, loss, and their place in the world.”—Florence Knapp, New York Times bestselling author of The Names
“Set against the backdrop of political repression in 1970s Brazil, Liar’s Dice is the remarkable story of a young girl finding her footing and her voice. Juliet Faithfull writes unsparingly of the violence of the time and the heartbreak of familial disruption, but she holds her characters so gently, never losing sight of the love and hard-won forgiveness at the center of their lives. Liar’s Dice is a moving and deeply honest novel.”—Lauren Fox, New York Times bestselling author of Send for Me
“I hesitate to call anything this beautiful ‘magic.’ It’s more than that; it’s a sacred healing. Liar’s Dice is a heartfelt tale that lifts you into another world and suspends you there from start to finish. Written with an infinity of detail and the tender sensibility of a girl/woman, Faithfull is a master storyteller and visionary. She has captured a story to heal our own hearts in these uncertain times.”—Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street
“In Liar’s Dice, every page shimmers with longing—Dolores reaching for the twin torn from her, even as Brazil itself trembles under the weight of silence, a country that vanishes its own people. This is a story of girls bound by an unspoken rhythm, of love that endures exile and betrayal, of one heart beating for two across oceans and shadows. A magnificent debut.”—Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
“Both intimate and expansive, Liar’s Dice sets the enduring relationship of separated twins Dolores and Mita against the fraught political backdrop of 1970s Brazil. Written with extraordinary compassion and insight, it is an immersive coming-of-age story that reveals the wild depths of the human heart.”—Frances de Pontes Peebles, author of The Air You Breathe
JULIET FAITHFULL is a Spanish-British-American writer who grew up in Brazil. Liar's Dice, her first novel, was a winner of the 2024 Irish Writers Centre’s Novel Fair and a semifinalist for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. She was awarded a Pauline Scheer Fellowship by GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator program and her short stories have been published in the Bellevue Literary Review and Urbanus Magazine. A graduate of Harvard University and Smith College School for Social Work, Juliet works as a trilingual psychotherapist and currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her two sons.
View titles by Juliet Faithfull
An astonishing debut about a teenage girl in 1970s Brazil who is torn away from her twin sister—and who must learn what it means to fight for those she loves when all the odds are stacked against her.
Dolores and Mita grow up in rural Brazil, identical and inseparable. But Mita develops a mysterious illness that challenges the family. One day, Dolores wakes up to find her sister gone—sent to a hospital in their father’s native London. There is no Dolores without Mita. And now Mita is gone.
When the family moves to Rio, Dolores’ parents act as if Mita never existed. Lonely and grief-stricken, Dolores struggles to learn to read and write at the stodgy British School—until she meets Andrea, a headstrong, streetwise girl from the dangerous part of town. Andrea shows Dolores a new side of Rio—and how to survive it. As the dictatorship cracks down on dissenters, and people disappear, Dolores begins to wonder if her sister is dead, and her parents are lying. Determined to uncover the truth, Dolores is willing to do whatever it takes—lie, gamble and steal—to get her sister back.
Liar’s Dice captures the precarious intensity of coming of age in a volatile time—when repression and silence are the fabric of everyday life—and the cost of family secrets. Heartrending and tender, Juliet Faithfull’s debut novel is a testament to the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood.
Praise
“Liar's Dice is an unexpected take on the coming-of-age tale. This story of a girl’s separation from her ailing twin in 1970s Brazil is a nuanced exploration of family dynamics, sisterhood, and the search for belonging.”—Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake and Good Dirt
“An unsettling and beautifully written story about a family wrestling with truth, loss, and their place in the world.”—Florence Knapp, New York Times bestselling author of The Names
“Set against the backdrop of political repression in 1970s Brazil, Liar’s Dice is the remarkable story of a young girl finding her footing and her voice. Juliet Faithfull writes unsparingly of the violence of the time and the heartbreak of familial disruption, but she holds her characters so gently, never losing sight of the love and hard-won forgiveness at the center of their lives. Liar’s Dice is a moving and deeply honest novel.”—Lauren Fox, New York Times bestselling author of Send for Me
“I hesitate to call anything this beautiful ‘magic.’ It’s more than that; it’s a sacred healing. Liar’s Dice is a heartfelt tale that lifts you into another world and suspends you there from start to finish. Written with an infinity of detail and the tender sensibility of a girl/woman, Faithfull is a master storyteller and visionary. She has captured a story to heal our own hearts in these uncertain times.”—Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street
“In Liar’s Dice, every page shimmers with longing—Dolores reaching for the twin torn from her, even as Brazil itself trembles under the weight of silence, a country that vanishes its own people. This is a story of girls bound by an unspoken rhythm, of love that endures exile and betrayal, of one heart beating for two across oceans and shadows. A magnificent debut.”—Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
“Both intimate and expansive, Liar’s Dice sets the enduring relationship of separated twins Dolores and Mita against the fraught political backdrop of 1970s Brazil. Written with extraordinary compassion and insight, it is an immersive coming-of-age story that reveals the wild depths of the human heart.”—Frances de Pontes Peebles, author of The Air You Breathe
JULIET FAITHFULL is a Spanish-British-American writer who grew up in Brazil. Liar's Dice, her first novel, was a winner of the 2024 Irish Writers Centre’s Novel Fair and a semifinalist for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. She was awarded a Pauline Scheer Fellowship by GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator program and her short stories have been published in the Bellevue Literary Review and Urbanus Magazine. A graduate of Harvard University and Smith College School for Social Work, Juliet works as a trilingual psychotherapist and currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her two sons.
View titles by Juliet Faithfull
