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To the mortal world—at least, to most people in Brooklyn—Mateo Matisse and Chela Hidalgo are simply two teenagers in love. Mateo is a brilliant pianist, but he’s also a typical, chaotic guy. And Chela, the short, fierce girl he met while playing piano at her bat mitzvah, is a terrific dancer and a terrible singer, who doesn’t get shook by bullies. As teenagers, the way they fell in love was dramatic. But their love for each other goes back centuries—and not only poetically speaking. Mateo and Chela were once spirits, just spirits. At some point, Galanika the Healer became one with the boy Mateo. Chela’s goddess roots are even more complicated—she’s part Okanla the Destroyer and part Madrigal the Creator. Imagine experiencing the thrill and angst of first love while grappling with confounding divine powers and serious godly responsibilities. And oh, battling demons. In LAST CANTO OF THE DEAD, award-winning author Daniel José Older continues the story of Mateo and Chela that began in BALLAD & DAGGER. In Book One of the Outlaw Saints duology, our young couple of very old souls pulled off the incredible feat of raising their once-sunken native island of San Madrigal—a vibrant, multicultural homeland to both Cuban Santeros and Sephardic Jews—from the sea and saving their Brooklyn diaspora community from the wrath of an ancient enemy. In Book Two, the culmination to their epic story, Mateo and Chela are faced with saving San Madrigal from an army of demons in the thrall of a 200-year-old maniac named Archibaldo, who happens to be Mateo’s ancestor. Meanwhile back in Brooklyn, their beloved neighborhood is being threatened by hideous creatures best described as bambarúto, or bogeyman in Ladino, and the fear is dividing the once tight-knit community, with the two sides at each other’s throats.