Fonseca

A Novel

By: Jessica Francis Kane

Narrated by: Cerris Morgan-Moyer, Nicholas Guy Smith, Christine Rendel, Jessica Francis Kane

Named a Must-Read Book for Summer by the LA Times and a Most-Anticipated Book of 2025 by Lit Hub • Library Journal Title to Watch

The story acclaimed English author Penelope Fitzgerald never wrote, of her real-life journey to Mexico with her son in search of a much-needed inheritance, by Jessica Francis Kane, bestselling author of Rules for Visiting

Winter 1952. Penelope Fitzgerald’s husband is a struggling alcoholic, their literary journal is on the brink, and she is pregnant with their third child. When she receives a letter from two elderly sisters named Delaney, distant relations with a silver mine, who dangle the possibility of an inheritance, she recognizes it as a creative and practical lifeline.

Jessica Francis Kane’s brilliantly imagined Fonseca fictionalizes Penelope’s real and momentous trip to northern Mexico in pursuit of this legacy. She leaves her two-year-old, Tina, with relatives and sails for New York with her six-year-old, Valpy, in tow. From there, mother and son take a bus all the way to . . . Fonseca.

But when they arrive, nothing goes to plan. There are others vying for the Delaney money, and for three months, from Day of the Dead to Candlemas, Penelope must navigate a quixotic household and guide her impressionable son. More and more people frequent the house: an ambitious American couple, various local entrepreneurs and artists (including Edward Hopper and his wife, Jo), and finally a handsome stranger who claims he is a Delaney.

With heart, humor, and a deep understanding of her subject that has characterized the range of her work her whole career, Kane (whose work “could have been written by Jane Austen’s great great-great-granddaughter” —Oprah Daily) has written much more than an homage: Fonseca is an enthralling world of its own as well as a stunning fictionalization of a season in Fitzgerald’s life.


© 2025 Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

The setting in Mexico in the time period was very engaging

The narration of Valpy was very distracting, even grating. A lovely story and the rest of the narration was fine, but a little disappointing a child does not maintain a voice like that.

Superb performance of an evocative novel

An intriguing and appealing cast of characters gathered in a colorful location. Highly recommended for fans of Penelope Fitzgerald's novels. The principal narrator is simply superb in bringing this book to vivid life.