Winner of the Pen, Jean Stein Book AwardNational Book Foundation Science + Literature Selection, Finalist for New American Voices Award and Lammy Award for Bisexual NonfictionA Time, Npr, Chicago Public Library, Science for the People, Wync, Wbur Radio Boston, and The Stacks Podcast Best Book of the Year, Longlisted for the Pen Open Book Award. As heard on Fresh Air, Growing up in a New Jersey factory town in the 1980s, Daisy Hernandez believed that her aunt had become deathly ill from eating an apple. No one in her family, in either the United States or Colombia, spoke of infectious diseases. Even into her thirties, she only knew that her aunt had died of Chagas, a rare and devastating illness that affects the heart and digestive system. But as Hernandez dug deeper, she discovered that Chagas or the kissing bug disease is more prevalent in the United States than the Zika virus. After her aunt's death, Hernandez began searching for answers. Crisscrossing the country, she interviewed patients, doctors, epidemiologists, and even veterinarians with the Department of Defense. She learned that in the United States more than three hundred thousand people in the Latinx community have Chagas, and that outside of Latin America, this is the only country with the native insects the "kissing bugs" that carry the Chagas parasite.