Nelsa Roberto talks about Illegally Blonde on Omnitv HERE (Click web stories and then “libro sobre deportados”.)

by Nelsa Roberto

Sometimes discovering your roots is about a lot more than watching your real hair colour grow in…

When seventeen-year-old Lucy do Amaral comes home with newly bleached blonde hair she expects a major lecture and another grounding from her strict Portuguese parents. What she doesn’t expect is the shocking news that her parents are illegal aliens who’ve just been told they’re being deported in less than a week. Lucy’s furious at her parents and has no intention of leaving her boyfriend and missing prom and grad to go live in some backwater village with no cable, no movie theatre and no life in some country she knows nothing about.

But, as Lucy discovers, intentions and reality are sometimes worlds apart - or, in Lucy’s case, at least an ocean away. Lucy’s desperation to return to her ‘real’ home ensnares her in a web of illegal activity that threatens more than her journey home. But it’s when she unexpectedly falls for a guy whose connection to his home is centuries old that she finally realizes you can never run away from your roots – not even if you bleach them.

About the Author:
Nelsa Roberto is a Portugese-Canadian who was born in a remote logging community in northern Ontario, grew up in a farming community in southern
Ontario, and now lives in Toronto with her husband, three children, and a Golden Retriever.