Madrid, 1599. Following her mother's sudden death, fifteen-year-old Isabel goes to live in the family home of her father, the poet and war hero Miguel de Cervantes, a man she has never met.

Forced to pose as a maid to conceal her illegitimate status, Isabel must adapt to a new way of life with her jealous cousin and protective aunts while she waits for her father to return from Seville. Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Esquivias, Miguel's pious and faithful wife Catalina similarly awaits his return, blissfully unaware of Isabel's existence.

As Miguel works on the manuscript that will become his masterpiece, Don Quixote, the years pass and Isabel grows into womanhood, falling in and out love, uncovering family secrets, and yearning for the legitimacy denied her by a rigid and callous society.

Capturing two tumultuous decades of Golden Age Spain in rich historical detail, Martha Bátiz paints a compassionate portrait of a family on the precipice of great change and the fiercely independent woman at its centre striving to make a life of her own. (From House of Anansi Press)

A Daughter's Place is available in May 2025.

Martha Bátiz is a translator, writer and professor of creative writing and Spanish language and literature who moved from Mexico to Toronto in 2003. She has written five books, including the short story collection Plaza Requiem, which won the International Latino Book Award, and the novella Damiana's Reprieve, which received the Casa de Teatro Prize. Her debut novel is A Daughter's Place.