"Any Resemblance to Real Events ..."

Whether hot off the presses or on the shelves for years, a good book is worth talking about.

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Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
(Berkley, Historical/Literary Fiction, April 2025)

SYNOPSIS: When Nikki Berry receives a call from her estranged grandmother, Mother Rita, asking Nikki to come for a visit to her North Carolina home, Nikki jumps at the chance. It's finally an opportunity to figure out why Nikki's mother, Lorelle (and therefore Nikki), hasn't spoken to Mother Rita in years—and why Lorelle never took Nikki to visit Mother Rita when they were speaking.

Soon after Nikki arrives at Mother Rita's, she learns there's much more to the land and her family's history than she ever could have dreamed. The mountain Mother Rita lives on used to be the Kingdom of Happy Land, a kingdom of freedpeople who had, as their queen, Nikki's great-greatgreat-grandmother Luella.

As she tries to learn more about Happy Land—like whether it was a real kingdom and if her ancestor was truly its queen—Nikki also discovers why Mother Rita decided to tell Nikki about this history now. The legacy of the kingdom, what remains of the land, and the memory of those who lived there, is at risk of being lost forever.

FOR WRITERS: If you've done a lot of research for your novel and you want to work in as much as possible, but aren't quite sure how,