Johnson, Sadeqa

Johnson’s depiction of the triumphs and challenges encountered by both women should be a hit with book groups and listeners interested in timely historical fiction. Suggest to fans of Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half and Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s Take My Hand.

This is a moving work of women’s fiction with timely perspective on racism, colorism, and pre-Roe women’s rights in the United States of the 1950s. Fans of Tayari Jones, Brit Bennett, and Jeni McFarland will want to check it out.

This well-researched and intensely moving fifth novel by Johnson (And Then There Was Me) is perfect for fans of historical fiction with strong female characters such as The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom and Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Book clubs looking for #OwnVoices authors will be powerfully impressed by this story of a lesser-known aspect of the history of slavery in the American South.