G. Robert Frazier

Former slave Frannie Langton is warned early in her service to her London employer, George Benham, that “a good servant must know her place, to be content in it.” Frannie readily admits that this has “always been my trouble. Never knowing my place or being content in it.”

Frannie, who is fiercely independent, immediately likable and stubbornly contrary to the expectations of her role in society, shares many such admissions while awaiting trial for the murder of Benham and his wife, Marguerite. What Frannie can’t account for is how she wound up covered in their blood and being charged with their murders. In an effort to make sense of it all, Frannie pens her life story from jail. What follows is a literary sojourn as Frannie explores her place in history through race, class and sexuality.

Set in the early 1800s, The Confessions of Frannie Langton begins with Frannie’s life as a slave on a Jamaican plantation and her education in reading and writing. From there, she recounts how she attained her “freedom” when her master took her to London, where he “gifted” her to the Benhams, and how she eventually began a love affair with Marguerite. The story casually meanders through Frannie’s narrative in a mostly linear fashion but is interspersed with snippets from the trial in progress, including damning testimony and fiery newspaper accounts, making certain that readers don’t forget what’s at stake.

First-time novelist Sara Collins, a lawyer of Jamaican descent and winner of the 2015 Michael Holroyd Prize for Creative Writing, crafted her debut as a tribute to Jane Eyre, “but with a protagonist who would have lived outside the margins set by history.” In that regard, Collins has succeeded admirably, resulting in a novel that reads like a classic gothic romance.

Contemporary postal carriers don’t realize how good they’ve got it. Yes, there are the occasional dogs, inclement weather or the gloom of night, but these inconveniences pale in comparison to the would-be rapists, bigots and crazed preachers on the trail for Cussy Mary Carter in Kim Michele Richardson’s impassioned new novel, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.

A courier for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famed Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Cussy is tasked with delivering library books over treacherous paths to impoverished hill folk, rural farmers and coal miners who toil in the Appalachian Mountains during the Great Depression. Cussy, 19, who makes her deliveries on the back of her faithful pack mule, considers her job a necessary one and part of “a respectable life” despite her father’s protestations. Cussy is one of the last of her kind, a blue-skinned woman (resulting from a real-life genetic blood disorder called methemoglobinemia), and so Pa wants her safe. He’d rather see her married off so she’ll have someone to take care of her when he no longer can. He even arranges such a marriage, only for her husband to die from an apparent heart attack while raping her.

Freed of the marriage she didn’t want, Cussy returns to her true passion in her old job of traveling librarian. For many, her visits are more than welcome, and the books she brings offer hope for brighter days, an escape from their daily doldrums and a singular connection to the outside world. But there are also those who distrust both the books she brings—some women complain that “she’s carrying dirty books up them rocks”—and her mysterious blue hue. And there are the aforementioned threats along the trail itself, including Pastor Frazier, the unstable cousin of her late husband, who fears she’s delivering the word of Satan. But Cussy’s strong will and commitment drive her forward.

Richardson has penned an emotionally moving and fascinating story about the power of literacy over bigotry, hatred and fear.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Kim Michele Richardson shares a look behind The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.

With a title like Cherokee America, one might expect to read a grand, sweeping epic in the vein of Dances with Wolves or Gone with the Wind. And in the hands of Margaret Verble, who previously penned the Pulitzer Prize finalist Maud’s Line, such expectations certainly make sense. But while Verble delivers an impressive, historical saga of Native American life in the mid-19th century, it comes on a much more intimate and narrower scale.

Set shortly after the Civil War in 1875, the novel revolves around Check Singer and her journey from Tennessee to Cherokee land in Oklahoma. The story also follows her extensive family, including her ailing, bedridden husband, Andrew, and their five children—Connell, Hugh, Clifford, Otter and Paul, ranging from school-aged to grown up—as well as their hired help, assorted friends and neighbors. Check’s mission throughout is simply getting through the day with only a modicum of trouble, but with the ready admission that “trouble breeds trouble.”

Trouble, of course, arrives right away when one of the hired hands on her sprawling potato farm, a black man named Puny, learns he is the father of a child through an illicit affair. The child is born “bad sick” and doesn’t have long to live when Check brings it to Puny. The child, after its death, is buried in a potato farm in an attempt to keep it hidden from Puny’s wife, Ezell, a secret that doesn’t last very long.

Puny and one of Check’s boys, Hugh, get into further trouble later at a brothel where Hugh is shot in the leg, prompting an investigation by the sheriff. At the same time, rumors surface of buried Confederate gold somewhere on the property, while racial tensions escalate between the black, white and native peoples in the community. Check balances it all without ever losing her control, providing calm, wisdom and discipline in the face of cultural, societal and physical hurdles.

Cherokee America meanders quite a bit due to its impressive cast and multiple storylines, taking its time to explore each’s feelings and tribulations, but Verble keeps Check at its grounded center. Readers shouldn’t expect to fly through these pages at breakneck speed, but rather enjoy a more leisurely pace that will leave them wholly immersed in Check’s world.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this review incorrectly described Puny as burying the baby in the potato farm. 

Novels revolving around the assassination of John F. Kennedy have become a genre unto themselves. There are plenty, and likely even more conspiracy theories to boot. So at first take, November Road, the new thriller from author Lou Berney, may seem like just another book to add to the stack. Berney, though, is not just another author. Through gorgeous prose, the Edgar, Macavity and Anthony Award-winning author of The Long and Faraway Gone elevates an otherwise simple cat-and-mouse story into a heartfelt journey of hope and discovery for two characters running from their pasts.

While the loss of the president is certainly felt throughout November Road, it only serves as a backdrop to what is essentially a story of redemption. The novel follows Frank Guidry, an enforcer for mobster Carlos Marcello, whose hands are all over JFK’s death. Frank is tasked with retrieving and disposing of a getaway car parked near the scene of the crime in Dallas, and a hit man has been tasked with disposing of Frank once the job is done. Aware that his life is in jeopardy, Frank makes a desperate dash for freedom along Route 66.

At the same time, young mother Charlotte Roy, along with her two daughters, is making her escape from a failed marriage in Oklahoma. Naturally, the storylines eventually cross as Frank encounters Charlotte, whom he sees as a way to throw off his pursuer. What begins as a convenient way to cover his tracks evolves into a serious romance between the two characters. But with a killer after Frank, the suspense builds toward a fateful showdown.

In the end, November Road is more than the sum of its parts—a thrilling plot, an iconic period piece and unforgettable characters. Above all, it’s an American novel not to be missed.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Lou Berney for November Road.

This article was originally published in the October 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.