Book Club: BeeSpoke/Kinfolk Lit/Jade Pages

From acclaimed author Terah Shelton Harris comes a poignant story of survival and redemption, asking readers to question what it means to stop surviving and start living. Leigh is the last of the Wildes. She knows this because her father told her so. She knows this because all the other Wildes are dead. Surviving is nothing new to Leigh. So, when the transport bus taking her to prison runs off the road, killing everyone onboard except her, she does what's in her nature. Leigh survives and starts walking. Quick to realize nobody is looking for her, Leigh takes her chance, stumbling upon a remote flower farm in Alabama. The farm, run by Jackson, a local do-gooder with big dreams of his own, seems the perfect place to hide. What Leigh doesn't expect is to also heal. As time passes, Leigh finds herself at peace with the slow life and small trials of the farm, taking solace among the flowers and the family Jackson has built. But the past isn't so easily buried, and soon enough Leigh is faced with a devastating Can she leave her transgressions and enjoy the life she has built, or is the truth of who she is her only path to redemption?

This debut novel by a Palestinian-American voice takes us inside the lives of a conservative Arab family living in America. In Brooklyn, eighteen-year-old Deya is starting to meet with suitors. Though she doesn’t want to get married, her grandparents give her no choice. History is repeating itself: Deya’s mother, Isra, also had no choice when she left Palestine as a teenager to marry Adam. Though Deya was raised to believe her parents died in a car accident, a secret note from a mysterious, yet familiar-looking woman makes Deya question everything she was told about her past. As the narrative alternates between the lives of Deya and Isra, she begins to understand the dark, complex secrets behind her community.

If I Ruled the World by Amy DuBois Barnett is a forthcoming title from Flatiron Brooks.