Yaffa S Santos Books in Order

Yaffa S. Santos was born and raised in New Jersey. Her Dominican American background is central to her fiction, which makes room for the details that often carry a life: family meals, work routines, a favorite song, a demanding boss, and a complicated hope for love. She writes contemporary romance with a small touch of the uncanny.

As a teenager, Santos took a solo trip to the Dominican Republic. The trip changed how she thought about her heritage and sparked a deeper interest in cooking, especially the way a shared meal can bring people together. That connection between culture, feeling, and the kitchen sits at the center of her novels.

At Sarah Lawrence College, Santos studied writing and visual art. Those two interests fit naturally together in her work, where food, clothes, places, and lived-in settings help tell the story. Her books are interested in what people notice, what they keep private, and what can be revealed through the things they make.

The route to the page was also shaped by a simple childhood habit. Santos has recalled interviewing herself, relatives, and friends for fun, asking about favorite colors, foods, and activities. That interest in the particulars of people shows up in characters whose tastes and private worries tend to steer the action as much as the romance does.

Later, she lived in New York, Philadelphia, and Santo Domingo. Her time in Inwood and Washington Heights during her twenties became an important part of the New York landscape behind her first novel.

She began the first scene of A Taste of Sage in August 2015. Much of the manuscript came together between five and seven in the morning, before her children got up. The book follows chef Lumi Santana, whose unusual ability lets her sense emotions through someone else's cooking. Santos has said the idea grew from an interest in the possible connections between food and feeling, plus comments from her young son that made her wonder what might exist beyond the usual five senses.

Published in 2020, A Taste of Sage brings Dominican fusion cooking into conversation with the formal French restaurant run by Julien Dax. Santos wanted Dominican cuisine to be treated with the same seriousness and room for creativity. The novel blends workplace friction, romance, recipes, and Lumi's effort to rebuild after a business setback. It was an Indie Next List pick and received an International Latino Book Award.

Food does a lot of emotional work here.

Her second novel, A Touch of Moonlight, arrived in 2022. It follows Larimar Cintrón, a corporate bakery manager with a family secret: on full moons, she becomes a ciguapa, a figure from Dominican folklore. A romance with a local bakery owner brings career pressure, family loyalties, folklore, and self-acceptance into the same story. Like her debut, it pairs a love story with a woman figuring out how much of herself she is ready to show.

Across both books, Santos writes about women trying to make room for work they care about, relationships that ask for vulnerability, and heritage that shapes daily life. There is romance, but there are also menus, bakeries, family ties, and a little magic. She lives in Central Florida with her family and enjoys books, coffee, and the beach.