Anywhere You Run

Morris’s (All Her Little Secrets) second novel is a historical thriller set in Jim Crow Mississippi. Sisters violet and Marigold are the only surviving members of the Richards family. Twenty-two-year-old Violet has always been unconventional, doing what she wants when she wants; she knows she was a disappointment to her parents. Her older sister Marigold has long been the “good girl”—good grades in school, no sex before marriage, adhering to their mama’s admonishment to “become invisible” around white people. Marigold now works for the Mississippi Summer Project, dedicated to ensuring that Black people are allowed to vote after passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. When Violet kills a white man in self-defense, she flees Jackson, leaving Marigold behind. What she doesn’t realize is that Marigold is pregnant, and the father left her to fend for herself. As Jackson police investigate the murder of the man who assaulted Violet, Marigold realizes she must leave Mississippi too. But moving north creates another set of problems. Beautifully rendered prose written in the vernacular of a small Mississippi town will immerse readers in the lives of two sisters trying to survive.