Cheesemaker's Daughter

When Marina’s father summons her to their Croatian island from New York—and away from her evaporating marriage—to help him save his failing cheese factory, she must face her rocky past and an uncertain future. Winner of the 2025 Zibby Awards: Best Book that Made You Escape Best Book for the Traveler Best Book for the Foodie How do you begin again when the past threatens to drown you? In the throes of an unraveling marriage, New Yorker Marina Maržic returns to her native Croatian island where she helps her father with his struggling cheese factory, Sirana. Forced to confront her divided Croatian-American identity and her past as a refugee from the former Yugoslavia, Marina moves in with her parents on Pag and starts a new life working at Sirana. As she gradually settles back into a place that was once home, her life becomes inextricably intertwined with their island’s cheese. When her past with the son of a rival cheesemaker stokes further unrest