I was thrilled to see that Dolan Perkins-Valdez had a new historical and contemporary fiction book releasing, I loved her prior work, Take My Hand, which I read for my book club. It led to so many beautiful and inspiring conversations.
This book is about a woman, Nikki, who goes to North Carolina to visit her estranged grandmother, and gets more than she bargained for in learning about her entire family history. This is dual timeline and dual POV, I was heavily invested in both stories. The other storyline is Nikki’s great great great grandmother who was an enslaved person, then after emancipation, went on to become Queen of a utopian type village of formerly enslaved people in cabins once owned by a wealthy widow. They have a significant amount of land but they neither trust nor use US government resources.
I think what made me love this book so much are the characters, particularly Nikki’s grandmother Rita and her community. Even the minor characters seemed to stand out with complex personalities and side stories. This would make a great movie, the setting both past and current are very cinematic.
4 stars
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