Publishing October 15, 2024

Blue Light Hours perfectly encapsulates a tight-knit mother-daughter duo learning to live across the world from each other while adapting to becoming people on their own. The link is maintained through regular skype calls and Lobato does a great job of making it feel so tangible, so real.

Lovely story.

Thank you to the author and publisher for providing an advanced copy through Netgalley.

This is a poignant portrayal of the bond between a mother and daughter stretched across continents. As the daughter ventures from Brazil to Vermont on a full ride scholarship, their connection remains tethered through heartfelt Skype calls, a lifeline sustaining their memories and shared experiences.
The narrative beautifully juxtaposes the daughter's journey of learning and adaptation in a foreign land with the mother's bittersweet acceptance of her daughter's pursuit of a future divergent from her own. While the daughter immerses herself in the complexities of a new culture, the mother finds solace in the knowledge that her daughter is carving out a future with promise and opportunity.

"Blue light hours" is a beautiful reminder that distance may separate, but the bonds of love and support endure, transcending borders and bridging the gap between old lives and new beginnings.

Blue Light Hours is a captivating portrayal of the intricate bond between a mother and daughter navigating the vast expanse of separation and cultural differences. The prose delicately weaves together the tender moments shared between the young woman studying abroad in Vermont and her mother in northeastern Brazil. Despite the physical distance and the angular confines of a Skype window, the connection between mother and daughter flourishes, creating new rituals of intimacy and caretaking. I think this story beautifully captures the universal themes of love, longing, and resilience in the face of separation and cultural differences.

3.5 ⭐️

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley! It was a simple and sweet story of a Brazilian mother and daughter separated by the daughter’s full ride to a school in the US. They have a daily Skype call and their differences deepen as they are missing each other from other cultures. It ultimately highlights the pervasive and lasting bond of a mother and daughter. Very sweet and quick read!

Blue Light Hours is a beautiful story about a daughter who leaves her home to go study abroad, leaving behind her mother, her old life and everything she has ever known. Through the pages, the daughter will adapt and change, will miss home and her mother, will picture her future life in this new country and will feel bad for not wanting to go back.
This is a story you’ll find many people share. Being an immigrant in a new country is never easy, adjusting and having to leave some of your habits and part of your culture behind, your family and friends, everything and everyone you love… and only bringing a suitcase full of new opportunities and fear. This book will make you think about all these things, and more: how a mother-daughter relationship can last and stay as strong as the day the daughter left; how it takes two to keep it going; how each one has to understand the other and put themselves in their shoes; how they worry about each other; how easy it is to fall apart when your pillar is gone, but how they help you put your life together again, just in a new way; and how it all becomes normal when the time has passed, how they adjust to each other’s lives, and how they make it work even when they’re miles away.
This is a beautiful story about mother-daughter love, but also about self-improvement, and a great way to understand how it is like for a family where one member has left to try to improve their lives somewhere else, far from their family.

This book was so beautiful. I imagined my college campus and how I would call my mom daily, and I was only two hours from home. Bruna's mother and daughter pair connect via the screen since they are miles and miles away from one another. It was very interesting to see their relationship unfold. I loved this!