THE LITTLE TEA SHOP IN TOKYO By Jules Wake

Publisher: One More Chapter (June 11, 2020)
Publication Date: June 11, 2020
Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers

The Little Teashop in Tokyo

Grab your passport and escape to a land of dazzling skycrapers, steaming bowls of comforting noodles, and a page-turning love story that will make you swoon!

For travel blogger Fiona, Japan has always been top of her bucket list so when she wins an all-expenses paid trip, it looks like her dreams are coming true.

Until she arrives in vibrant, bustling Tokyo and comes face-to-face with the man who broke her heart ten years ago, gorgeous photographer Gabe.

Fiona can’t help but remember the heartache of their last meeting but amidst the temples and clouds of soft pink cherry blossoms, can Fiona and Gabe start to see life – and each other – differently?

THOUGHTS/REVIEW:

I LOVED this book and had a smile on my face from beginning to the end while reading this amazingly fun and swoon worthy read. It reminded me of my time visiting Tokyo and Julie Caplin has captured all the sights and sounds of the bustling city, the food, the wonderful people. Fiona was living the dream and for a time, I was immersed in Fiona’s world as a travel blogger. A dream job for any travel enthusiast. I can not recommend this book enough! 

Purchase Links

UK - https://amzn.to/39JCFL9

US - http://amzn.to/39QbGhh

Author Bio

Jules Wake announced at the age of ten that she planned to be a writer. Along the way she was diverted by the glamorous world of PR and worked on many luxury brands, taking journalists on press trips to awful places like Turin, Milan, Geneva, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam and occasionally losing the odd member of the press in an airport. This proved fabulous training for writing novels as it provided her with the opportunity to eat amazing food, drink free alcohol, hone her writing skills on press releases and to research European cities for her books.

She writes best-selling warm-hearted contemporary fiction for HarperImpulse.

Under her pen name, Julie Caplin, her thirteenth novel, The Little Teashop in Tokyo will be published in ebook and paperback this June.

Social Media Links –

Twitter @JulieCaplin

@Juleswake

Facebook: www.facebook.com/JulieCaplinAuthor

6/11/20 THE LAST FLIGHT By Julie Clark

Print Length: 320 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark (June 23, 2020)
Publication Date: June 23, 2020

Two women.

Two flights. 

One last chance to disappear.

Claire Cook has a perfect life. Married to the scion of a political dynasty, with a Manhattan townhouse and a staff of ten, her surroundings are elegant, her days flawlessly choreographed, and her future auspicious. But behind closed doors, nothing is quite as it seems. That perfect husband has a temper that burns as bright as his promising political career, and he's not above using his staff to track Claire's every move, making sure she's living up to his impossible standards. But what he doesn't know is that Claire has worked for months on a plan to vanish.

A chance meeting in an airport bar brings her together with a woman whose circumstances seem equally dire. Together they make a last-minute decision to switch tickets—Claire taking Eva's flight to Oakland, and Eva traveling to Puerto Rico as Claire. They believe the swap will give each of them the head start they need to begin again somewhere far away. But when the flight to Puerto Rico goes down, Claire realizes it's no longer a head start but a new life. Cut off, out of options, with the news of her death about to explode in the media, Claire will assume Eva's identity, and along with it, the secrets Eva fought so hard to keep hidden.

For fans of Lisa Jewell and Liv Constantine, The Last Flight is the story of two women—both alone, both scared—and one agonizing decision that will change the trajectory of both of their lives.

EDITORIAL REVIEWS:

"The Last Flight is everything you want in a book: a gripping story of suspense; haunting, vulnerable characters; and a chilling and surprising ending that stays with you long after the last page." - Aimee Molloy, New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Mother

"I'm a sucker for suspense stories crafted around an airplane crash, and Julie Clark's The Last Flight lived up to the hype and then some. Clark starts with a bang then keeps the pace at full throttle, deftly weaving two seemingly separate stories into one wild and entertaining ride. The perfect combination of beautiful prose and high suspense, and an ending that I guarantee will catch you off guard." - Kimberly Belle, internationally bestselling author of Dear Wife and The Marriage Lie

"The Last Flight sweeps you into a thrilling story of two desperate women who will do anything to escape their lives. Both poignant and addictive, you'll race through the pages to the novel's chilling end. A must read of the summer!" - Kaira Rouda, internationally bestselling author of Best Day Ever and The Favorite Daughter

"Julie Clark's The Last Flight is a stunner: both a compelling, intricately woven tale of suspense and a thoughtful, nuanced portrayal of two very different women, each at a dangerous crossroads in her life. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough!" - Kathleen Barber, author of Truth Be Told and Follow Me

"Strong women take center stage in this Breaking Bad meets Sleeping with the Enemy thriller. The Last Flight has it all - original characters, fast pacing, and clever twists, all in one explosive package!" - Wendy Walker, nationally bestselling author of The Night Before

"The Last Flight will propel you headfirst into the frantic lives of two women, both determined to escape their current reality. Julie Clark weaves their stories effortlessly, delivering a pitch-perfect suspense novel that absolutely lives up to its hype. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up!" - Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke, authors of The Two Lila Bennetts

"Get ready to hold onto the edge of your seat. This is a fantastic thriller about real people facing tremendous challenges. Exciting, touching, haunting, The Last Flight will stay with you long after you turn the final page. Julie Clark has written a bang of a novel." - Rene Denfeld, internationally bestselling author of The Child Finder and The Butterfly Girl

"The Last Flight is a wild ride: One part Strangers on a Train, one part Breaking Bad, with more twists than an amusement park roller coaster! Julie Clark is a devilishly inventive storyteller." - Janelle Brown, New York Times bestselling author of Watch Me Disappear

"A tense and engaging womancentric thriller." - Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"The moral dilemmas that the multifaceted, realistic characters face in their quest for survival lend weight to this pulse-pounding tale of suspense. Clark is definitely a writer to watch." - Publishers Weekly, starred review --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

THOUGHTS/REVIEW:

I loved this book. It has been awhile since I was so engrossed with a book that I wanted to get home from work to continue reading this, and better just tempted to just stay home and finish this book. It’s absolutely tantalizing read and had my pulses palpitating for what is to happen next. Julie Clark’s writing was brilliant with perfect pacing. The ending was completely satisfying and just left me stunned. Pick this up for a wonderful thriller/suspense women centric read I highly recommend.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT:

Born and raised in Santa Monica, California, Julie Clark grew up reading books on the beach while everyone else surfed. After attending college at University of the Pacific, and a brief stint working in the athletic department at University of California, Berkeley, she returned home to Santa Monica to teach. She now lives there with her two young sons and a golden doodle with poor impulse control. The Ones We Choose is her first novel.

6/9/20 TEA BY THE SEA BLOG TOUR Winner of the Lignum Vitae Una Marson Award for Adult Literature By Donna Hemans

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Red Hen Press (June 9, 2020)
Language: English


A seventeen-year-old taken from her mother at birth, an Episcopal priest with a daughter
whose face he cannot bear to see, a mother weary of searching for her lost child: Tea by the
Sea is their story—that of a family uniting and unraveling. To find the daughter taken
from her, Plum Valentine must find the child’s father who walked out of a hospital with
the day-old baby girl without explanation. Seventeen years later, weary of her unfruitful
search, Plum sees an article in a community newspaper with a photo of the man for
whom she has spent half her life searching. He has become an Episcopal priest. Her plan:
confront him and walk away with the daughter he took from her. From Brooklyn to the
island of Jamaica, Tea by the Sea traces Plum’s circuitous route to finding her daughter and
how Plum’s and the priest’s love came apart.


ADVANCED PRAISE:


“The forbidden love story of Plum and Lenworth comes alive in this heart-rending novel,
Tea by the Sea. Hemans has a stunning ability to give words to that elusive feeling of
emptiness, and the longing for redemption is palpable. In Hemans’s deft hands, regrets
are explored with precision and compassion so that the reader finds herself unable to turn
against even characters who have committed the most wretched betrayals. Tea by the Sea is
like the story told in a grandmother’s kitchen with the odors of fried dumplings and
saltfish wafting into mouths that are set agape at the heady twists and turns delivered in an
urgent and beautiful prose.”
—Lauren Francis-Sharma, author of ’Til the Well Runs Dry



“Tea by the Sea is an insightful and illuminating prism of a novel, deftly examining familial
identity and personal transformation. Hemans turns the kaleidoscope, catching light at
different angles, to show us how one person’s act of honor and responsibility can also be
an act of unspeakable betrayal.”
—Carolyn Parkhurst, author of The Dogs of Babel and Harmony



THOUGHTS/REVIEW:

This was an emotional and harrowing read for me about a situation no mother should ever go through - to have your child taken from you.

The story telling was impactful and left me with the feelings of loss, abandonment, and the unrelenting love of a mother for her child.

It is a deep exploration of the relationships we keep, how we show love and the actions we take stemming from our own weaknesses and past hurts.

Really enjoyed this novel, and the ending left me thinking about this story even days after.


Excerpt:


FROM TEA BY THE SEA
What Plum thought in that moment was not how Lenworth and Pauline
would deal with the child’s outburst—dismissal from the table? A stern talking-
to?—but how Lenworth had wiped away her life. She was no more than the
scribbles on a chalkboard, removed with a single downward swipe leaving only
tiny particles swirling in the air,landing indiscriminately on everything within
reach. Had he looked at her that night in the hospital—still fatigued from labor,
drowsy from medication—and seen a dying woman or a woman struggling to
live? And she had struggled. And she had lived, pushed and pulled and willed
herself to climb from the weakness pulling her under, struggled until she regained
the normal rhythm of breathing, and came out on top. She had lived to hold the
baby she wanted to call Marissa, had lived to look up at him and smile,
triumphant.
Her smile hadn’t mattered.
He declared her dead and walked away with her child.


AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT:

Jamaican-born Donna Hemans is the author of the novel River Woman, winner of the
2003-4 Towson University Prize for Literature. Tea by the Sea, for which she won the
Lignum Vitae Una Marson Award for Adult Literature, is her second novel. Her short
fiction has appeared in the Caribbean Writer, Crab Orchard Review, Witness, and the anthology
Stories from Blue Latitudes: Caribbean Women Writers at Home and Abroad, among others. She
received her undergraduate degree from Fordham University and an MFA from American
University. She lives in Greenbelt, Maryland.

6/9/20 HOW TO SURVIVE DEATH AND OTHER INCONVENIENCES BY SUE WILLIAM SILVERMAN

Print Length: 213 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1496214099
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (March 1, 2020)
Publication Date: March 1, 2020

SYNOPSIS:

Many are haunted and obsessed by their own eventual deaths, but perhaps no one as much as Sue William Silverman. This thematically linked collection of essays charts Silverman’s attempt to confront her fears of that ultimate unknown. Her dread was fomented in part by a sexual assault, hidden for years, that led to an awareness that death and sex are in some ways inextricable, an everyday reality many women know too well.

Through gallows humor, vivid realism, and fantastical speculation, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences explores this fear of death and the author’s desire to survive it. From cruising New Jersey’s industry-blighted landscape in a gold Plymouth to visiting the emergency room for maladies both real and imagined to suffering the stifling strictness of an intractable piano teacher, Silverman guards her memories for the same reason she resurrects archaic words—to use as talismans to ward off the inevitable. Ultimately, Silverman knows there is no way to survive death physically. Still, through language, commemoration, and metaphor, she searches for a sliver of transcendent immortality.

TOUGHTS/REVIEW:

Haruki Murakami said that “Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it”. Sue William Silverman writes a collection of essays and musings of what might suggest in the tile to be a morbid book, “How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences”, but in fact is a clever book about a woman who very much wants to live and survive – so much so that she advices to survive death, one must believe in magic, language and memory. Silverman described death as the Ultima Thule – the great unknown that as much as death may terrify her, she vows to taunt it with “Death: Catch me if you can”. This latest collection of essays examines her life from a young age of 4 through her teenage years as she taunts death and takes calculated risks. Terrified of death she convinces herself that a headache could be an aneurysm, a stroke, a brain tumor – searching the web for answers and consults Google,MD. As a nurse, I found this piece the most fascinating and my favorite essay as she goes on to explain about her obsession and worry about her symptoms, and thank goodness because many times it has saved her from death. Silverman writes with so much wit and a way with words. I find her ramblings amusing and best enjoyed savored slowly over a glass of wine. I enjoyed this one. 

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT:

Sue William Silverman's forthcoming memoir is HOW TO SURVIVE DEATH and OTHER INCONVENIENCES (University of Nebraska Press, March 2020). Her previous memoirs are THE PAT BOONE FAN CLUB: MY LIFE AS A WHITE ANGLO-SAXON JEW (University of Nebraska Press); LOVE SICK: ONE WOMAN'S JOURNEY THROUGH SEXUAL ADDICTION (W.W. Norton), which aired as a Lifetime Television original movie, and BECAUSE I REMEMBER TERROR, FATHER, I REMEMBER YOU (University of Georgia Press), which won the AWP award in creative nonfiction. Her craft book is FEARLESS CONFESSIONS: A WRITER'S GUIDE TO MEMOIR, and her poetry collections are IF THE GIRL NEVER LEARNS (Brick Mantel Books) and HIEROGLYPHICS IN NEON (Orchises Press). As a professional speaker she has appeared on "The View," "Anderson Cooper-360," "CNN-Headline News," the Montel Williams Show, and the Discovery Channel. She teaches in the MFA in Writing program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

6/7/20 RAINY DAYS FOR THE HARPER GIRLS by ROSIE CLARKE

Print Length: 344 pages
Publisher: Boldwood Books (June 2, 2020)
Publication Date: June 2, 2020

Rainy Days for the Harpers Girls

Hard times ahead for the Harpers girls...

It is two years since Harpers opened in Oxford Street and Ben is planning to expand the premises.

Life is good for Sally and Ben as they look forward to their first child and hope for a prosperous future. Beth is settling into married life with Jack, gradually recovering from her aunt’s tragic death, though still unable to conceive a child.

New girls have joined Harpers and Marion, Janice and Becky all become a part of the daily life at the busy store. Rachel is undecided whether to marry a man she isn’t sure she can trust, while Minnie meets an old love.

The sun is shining in English streets but on the horizon dark clouds gather over Europe and war looms
threatening bringing rainy days for the Harpers girls…

THOUGHTS/REVIEW:

I LOVED this book, Rainy Days for the Harper Girls, the third book in the “Welcome to the Harpers Emporium” series. I did read this as a stand alone not having read the previous two books and loved it. He setting is in 1914 Oxford Street, London when the First World War was on-going. The men were going off to the war and the women active in the suffragette movement. This was a tough time for everyone and the rich historical detail was written so well for the reader to be truly transported to that time, and the difficulties experienced by many.

Clarke wrote beautifully and easily read over an afrernoon where the writing will easily immerse you into this riveting story I absolutely enjoyed reading about the characters introduced, the enjoyable daily activities, their struggles, trials and tribulations. Though the war in Europe is in the forefront of the story, there were many heartwarming moments, families growing, new romance and other lovely moments that made this read a really fantastic one.

I hope that this series continues as I would love to hear more about this story and the characters. I highly recommend this book and the other books in the series. Well done Clarke on another fabulous installment.











Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/2THhqo3

Author Bio – Rosie Clarke is a #1 bestselling saga writer whose most recent books include The Mulberry Lane series.  She has written over 100 novels under different pseudonyms and is a RNA Award winner.  She lives in Cambridgeshire.

Social Media Links –
Newsletter Sign Up: http://bit.ly/RosieClarkeNewsletter

http://www.rosieclarke.co.uk/

https://twitter.com/AnneHerries

http://bookbub.com/authors/rosie-clarke

GLORIOUS BOY BY AIMEE LIU

Paperback: 344 pages
Publisher: Red Hen Press (May 12, 2020)

Glorious Boy is a tale of war and devotion, longing and loss, and the power of love to prevail.
Set in India's remote Andaman Islands before and during WWII, the story revolves around a mysteriously mute 4-year-old who vanishes on the eve of Japanese Occupation. Little Ty's parents, Shep and Claire, will go to any lengths to rescue him, but neither is prepared for the brutal and soul-changing odyssey that awaits them.

It's 1942. The Japanese have invaded Burma and are closing in on India. After five years in the remote Andaman Islands, aspiring anthropologist Claire Durant and her husband Shep, a civil surgeon, must evacuate with their beloved but mysteriously mute four-year-old, Ty. They cannot, however, take Naila, the local girl whose ability to communicate with Ty has made them dangerously dependent on her. 

The morning of the evacuation, both children disappear. With time running out, Shep forces Claire onto the ship while he stays behind to find their son. But just days after landing in Calcutta, Claire learns that the Japanese have taken the Andamans--and cut off all access to her missing family. In the desperate odyssey that follows, Claire, Shep, and Naila will all take unimaginable risks while drawing deeply from their knowledge of these unique islands to save their beloved "glorious boy."

Review
Selected for:

Booklist's Top Ten Historical Fiction of 2020
New York Post's Best Books of the Week
Good Housekeeping's 20 Best Books of 2020 to Add to Your Reading List ASAP
Brit+Co's 12 Books That Will Take You on a Literary Vacation
Travel & Leisure's 20 New Books to Gift This Mother's Day
Parade's 30 Best Beach Reads of 2020
"The most memorable and original novel I've read in ages. Aimee Liu... evokes every side in a multi-cultural conversation with sympathy and rare understanding."
- Pico Iyer

"A riveting amalgam of history, family epic, anticolonial/antiwar treatise, cultural crossroads, and more, this latest from best-selling author Liu is a fascinating, irresistible marvel." -- Library Journal, starred review

"This fascinating novel examines the many dimensions of war, from the tragedy of loss to the unexpected relationships formed during conflict. The Andamans are a lush and unusual setting, a sacred home to all kinds of cultures and people, and Liu's prose is masterful. A good choice for book groups and for readers who are unafraid to be swept away." -- Booklist, starred review

"Liu upends the clichés of the white savior narrative." --Publishers Weekly

"A testament to the lengths we will go for the ones we love." --Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, author of Shadow Child and Hiroshima in the Morning

"Reminiscent of the tone and atmosphere of Somerset Maugham and George Orwell's Asia-set novels, Glorious Boy is a Second World War story of adventure and loss, uniquely set in the Andaman Islands, one of India's farthest flung territories" - Asian Review of Books

"So blisteringly alive you feel the swampy heat and the bugs, so emotionally true, it grips at every page. Just magnificent and not to be missed." --Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of With or Without You

"The heart of this book is what it means to be a mother... How do we learn what isn't instinct? How do we protect ourselves and others from our own best intentions? With a generous and exacting eye, Liu explores these questions and more, and we, lucky readers, get to go along on the ride." --Karen Shepard, author of Kiss Me Someone

"A riveting amalgam of history, family epic, anticolonial/antiwar treatise, cultural crossroads, and more, this latest from best-selling author Liu is a fascinating, irresistible marvel." --Smithsonian BookDragon

"Channeling some past classics also skeptical of the colonial enterprise, Glorious Boy stands out from the crowded shelves of World War II literature by immersing the reader in one of the remoter theatres of the Asian half of the War." -- Susan Blumberg-Kason, author of Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong


Featured by:

Ms. Magazine
The Historical Novel Society
Hasty Booklist
SheReads
Association of Writing Programs Virtual Book Club
A Mighty Blaze
Must Read Fiction

"In Glorious Boy, Liu's superb writing brings alive the strange days at the end of empire, from the torpid heat of the Andamanese jungles, to the bustle of metropolitan Calcutta. She carries the reader in an epic drama of a family caught up in events beyond their control all the way through to the nail-biting ending." - AuthorLink Writers&Readers Magazine

THOUGHTS/REVIEW:

I loved GLORIOUS BOY by Aimee Liu. Beautifully written, engrossing and riveting, this is a book that I devoured in a day as I was immersed into the story. This historical fiction book is set in WWII 1940’s in the Andaman Islands, in the Bay of Bengal. The characters were compelling and so is the political backdrop of what was happening historically in that part of the world. The protagonist is Claire Durant an anthropologist doing field study who arrives in the archipelago with her British physician husband, Shep – and while there they have a child Ty who is mute. Ty develops a friendship with Naila who is able to communicate with him. The war brings the Japanese to the island and on the day they are to leave, both Ty and Naila went missing.

This is a truly fantastic read that is multifasceted dealing with tragedy of the war, the human strength of perseverance and survival, parents’ sacrifice and love for their child and hope. This is a wonderfully research novel that is heart wrenching and enlightening read full of depth and deep meaning. I highly recommend this amazing book!

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT:

Aimee Liu is a best-selling novelist, essayist, and nonfiction author based in Los Angeles.

Her forthcoming novel is GLORIOUS BOY, due out from Red Hen Press on May 12, 2020. This tale of family devotion, war, and survival is set on India's remote Andaman Islands before and during WWII and revolves around a mysteriously mute 4-year-old who vanishes on the eve of Japanese Occupation. Little Ty's parents, Shep and Claire, will go to any lengths to rescue him, but neither is prepared for the brutal odyssey that awaits them.

She is also the author of GAINING: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders, published by Warner Books, February, 2007. Drawing on her own history of anorexia as well as interviews with more than forty other former anorexics and bulimics, Liu picks up her exploration of recovery where she ended her acclaimed memoir of anorexia nervosa, SOLITAIRE (Harper & Row, 1979), at age twenty-five. Back then, she thought recovery meant eating well. Gaining proves that healthy nutrition is only a first step. True recovery requires a new understanding of the role that genetics, personality, relationships, and anxiety play in these disorders. Liu uses cutting edge research to dispel the myth that fashion is to blame. She examines the real reasons eating disorders -- at all ages -- are on the rise, and how they can be prevented in future generations.

Aimee Liu also is a novelist. FLASH HOUSE (Warner Books, 2003) is a tale of suspense and Cold War intrigue set in Central Asia. CLOUD MOUNTAIN (Warner Books, 1997) is based on the true story of her American grandmother and Chinese revolutionary grandfather. Liu’s first novel, FACE(Warner Books, 1994), deals with mixed-race identity. These books have been translated into more than a dozen languages.

6/6/20 THE REVISIONERS BY MARGARET WILKERSON SEXTON - COUNTERPOINT PRESS

Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Counterpoint (November 5, 2019)

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year

"Sexton takes on [Toni Morrison's artful invocation of the ghost] in her new novel The Revisioners. . . She writes with such a clear sense of place and time that each of these intermingled stories feels essential and dramatic in its own way." —Ron Charles, The Washington Post

"A powerful tale of racial tensions across generations." —People

In 1924, Josephine is the proud owner of a thriving farm. As a child, she channeled otherworldly power to free herself from slavery. Now her new neighbor, a white woman named Charlotte, seeks her company, and an uneasy friendship grows between them. But Charlotte has also sought solace in the Ku Klux Klan, a relationship that jeopardizes Josephine’s family.

Nearly one hundred years later, Josephine’s descendant, Ava, is a single mother who has just lost her job. She moves in with her white grandmother, Martha, a wealthy but lonely woman who pays Ava to be her companion. But Martha’s behavior soon becomes erratic, then threatening, and Ava must escape before her story and Josephine’s converge.

The Revisioners explores the depths of women’s relationships—powerful women and marginalized women, healers and survivors. It is a novel about the bonds between mothers and their children, the dangers that upend those bonds. At its core, The Revisioners ponders generational legacies, the endurance of hope, and the undying promise of freedom.

"[A] stunning new novel . . . Sexton’s writing is clear and uncluttered, the dialogue authentic, with all the cadences of real speech... This is a novel about the women, the mothers." ―New York Times Book Review

Praise for The Revisioners

Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work―Fiction
Winner of the 2020 George Garrett New Writing Award
Long-listed for the 2020 Simpson/Joyce Carol Oates Prize
NBC News, 1 of 40 Best African American Books, According to the NAACP
A Time Must-Read Book of the Year
TODAY, 1 of 5 Books to Read If You Enjoyed "Writers & Lovers" by Lily King
One of O, The Oprah Magazine's Buzziest Books Coming Out This Year
A Well-Read Black Girl Book Club Pick
An Amazon Best Literature & Fiction Book of November 2019
E! News, One of the Best New Books of the Month
The Washington Post, 1 of 10 Books to Read This Month
Kirkus Reviews, 1 of the 12 Best Reads for Your Book Club
Electric Literature, 1 of 48 Books by Women and Nonbinary Authors of Color to Read in 2019
Literary Hub, 1 of 10 New Books You Should Read This Week
The Millions, Most Anticipated
Parade, One of the Most Anticipated Books of Fall
BuzzFeed, A Buzzy Book Coming Out This Fall
Publishers Weekly, One of the Big Indie Books of the Season
Good Housekeeping, 1 of the 50 Best Books of the Year to Add to Your Reading List
Book Marks, One of the Best Reviewed Books of the Week
Parade, 1 of 8 Books to Fall Into
All Arts, 1 of 10 New Books to Read This Month
PureWow, 1 of the 25 Best Books We Read This Year
PureWow, One of the Best New (and New-ish) Books to Read This Black History Month
Paperback Paris, 1 of 12 New Books You'll Want to Bring Outside This Season
StyleBlueprint, 1 of 6 New Novels to Curl Up with This Season

The Revisioners by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This riveting novel, The Revisioners was told in two crucial point of views and in three pivoting time lines that feature two African-American women - Ava and Josephine, who are connected by blood, and whose stories span over 160 years from the 1850’s through 1920’s, and finally in current day New Orleans, 2017.

This is a story of a family that for generations had been penetrated by deeply ingrained racism. This is a timely story that the readers will connect with and the reason why our black communities are still struggling for equality and human rights.

The story begins in current time with Ava as a biracial woman who moves in to her very wealthy white great grandmother’s home to work as her companion - the story wants me to believe just as Ava, that social progress and racism has been overcome in this family despite warnings from her own family.

My favorite was Josephine’s story, which began as an enslaved child in the mid 1800’s. Her story continues as she becomes a successful landowner in the 1920’s. Throughout the story, there were sprinkling of prayers, scriptures and church hymns that add to the setting of life in the south during those times.

The Revisioners was a sweeping and powerful story of how racial tensions spans across generation through the stories of women, their familial relationships, and the ingrained prejudice that seeps through not only in this family but the community that goes beyond skin deep.

I highly recommend this book. Margaret Wilkerson Sexton is a brilliant writer that probes into the stories of the privileged to the marginalized, and the fragility of the racial divide that is still palpable in our current times. A timely and relevant story that is a must read.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT:

MARGARET WILKERSON SEXTON, born and raised in New Orleans, studied creative writing at Dartmouth College and law at UC Berkeley. Her debut novel, A Kind of Freedom, was long-listed for the National Book Award and the Northern California Book Award, won the Crook's Corner Book Prize, and was the recipient of the First Novelist Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.



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