We Hope for Better Things

DEBUT Fresh voice Bartels writes about three generations of women in Detroit, MI, as they navigate the muddy waters of the civil rights era, the Underground Railroad, and current times. Elizabeth Balsam is a reporter at the Detroit Free Press, until she screws up an investigation and finds herself out of a job. When she meets James Rich, he starts her on a search for a relation she didn't know she had. The mysteries that surround her at her great-aunt's farmhouse bring her reeling into the past, as she finds graves and photographs that uncover decades-old secrets. A forbidden interracial marriage, an escaped slave, an expectant mother waiting for her Union soldier to return—all of these stories are deftly told by Bartels, as she explores the hard realities of racism and its many faces during various eras of American history.