WHAT PASSES AS LOVE: A Novel by Trisha R. Thomas Lake Union Publishing | September 1, 2021 | Black Historical Fiction | Literary Fiction Trade Paperback Original | $14.95 | ISBN: 978-1542030601 Kindle eBook | $3.99 | ASIN: B08VRSGGC9 Audiobook | $14.99 | ISBN: 978-171361226
A young woman pays a devastating price for freedom in this heartrending and breathtaking novel of the nineteenth-century South from the bestselling author of Nappily Ever After, Trisha R. Thomas
1850. I was six years old the day Lewis Holt came to take me away.
Born into slavery, Dahlia never knew her mother—or what happened to her. When Dahlia’s father, the owner of Vesterville plantation, takes her to work in his home as a servant, she’s desperately lonely. Forced to leave behind her best friend, Bo, she lives in a world between black and white, belonging to neither.
Ten years later, Dahlia meets Timothy Ross, an Englishman in need of a wife. Reinventing herself as Lily Dove, Dahlia allows Timothy to believe she’s white, with no family to speak of, and agrees to marry him. She knows the danger of being found out. She also knows she’ll never have this chance at freedom again.
Ensconced in the Ross mansion, Dahlia soon finds herself held captive in a different way—as the dutiful wife of a young man who has set his sights on a political future. But when Bo arrives on the estate in shackles, Dahlia decides to risk everything to save his life. With suspicions of her true identity growing and a bounty hunter not far behind, Dahlia must act fast or pay a devastating price.
Thomas was inspired to write WHAT PASSES AS LOVE when she came across this
photo from the Library of Congress. “Three sisters are emancipated and photographed in
their beautiful dresses and hats,” she explains. “All three could easily pass for white. But
the little girl, Augusta on the right, captured my attention. I imagined what her life would
be if she were treated differently, unfairly because her features were a shade darker than
her sisters and had a fuller nose and lips. What would happen if she took it upon herself
to run off and make a new life, the one she deserved just as much as her sisters?”
In the end, Thomas has created a breathtaking story that she hopes will help readers “feel
empowered, brave, and inspired to find their own kind of freedom.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Trisha R. Thomas has been featured in O, The Oprah Magazine’s Books That Made a
Difference. Her work has been featured and reviewed in Cosmopolitan,
the Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Essence, and the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer. Her debut novel, Nappily Ever After, is now a popular Netflix
original film. She is also a reviewer for the Los Angeles Review of Books. Trisha is a
recipient of the Literary Lion Award from the King County Library System
Foundation, was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary
Work, and was voted Best New Writer by the Black Writers Collective. For more
information visit www.trisharthomas.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment