#Books like back river quiver skin

She’s made sure of that.ĭespite herself, her mother’s voice natters in her head, approving her: a lady, walking on her lawn. Her lawn. When her baby thinks of home, it will think of this little town on what is still, technically, the frontier. She has to soak in as much light as possible, before the winter comes and the sun is gone here in Iowa.

#Books like back river quiver skin

A quiver answers her, under the skin stretching tighter every day. A sudden breeze trembles the maple sapling in the yard, and she sets both hands on her belly. Her skirts brush down the porch steps and over the grass, crushing one fallen leaf, then two. Yet as Sarah struggles amid anger, love, and the inherited lies of “ladyhood,” she realizes that her greatest struggle is within herself.īuilt around a mystery – who was really responsible for Seth’s disappearance, and why? – Eldorado, Iowa braids scenes of Sarah’s childhood on the plantation before and during the war with her present life on the Midwestern frontier, including her friendship with Seth’s sister Rosa Lee, the accidents of small-town life, and the daily textures of marriage, domesticity, and grace. Exploring the ties of love, anger, silence, and misunderstanding between women – including friends, mothers, daughters, and even present and former selves – Eldorado, Iowa asks: how do we grow through, and beyond, what we think we know of our pasts in order to discover our true homes, our true lives, and our true paths into the future?Īlone, Sarah wanders out the front door and into the September afternoon.

She can’t shake the suspicion that her mother caused Seth, the enslaved boy she loved, to flee the state under a threat of murder while ignoring the real danger presented by her sinister uncle. In 1875, a young physician’s wife, Sarah Archer, is settling into a new life on the Iowa frontier, expecting her first child.Ī survivor of the Civil War, she wrestles with troubling memories of her childhood on her family’s Alabama plantation, including her father’s suicide, her brother’s death, and the deprivations and dangers of war. I predict you’ll love this beautifully told book.” – John Calvin Hughes, author of The Lost Gospel of Darnell Rabren In prose as smooth as corn silk, Amy Weldon shifts seamlessly between timelines as her protagonist Sarah moves from Alabama to Iowa and from girl to woman. A coming-of-age story carefully braided with a young pregnant wife’s struggles to find her way drives this historical novel from the ruins of Alabama after the Civil War to the frontier town of Eldorado, Iowa. It’s not going to scrape away at all of the Whiteout, but it will chip away enough to see what truth lies just under the surface.“ This is a wonderful book. Having spent the last 20 years as an educator to the leaders, believers, and followers of tomorrow, Bloodwarm has the ability to turn heads, create conversation, and lead you toward change. Bloodwarm is also about the erasure of black womanhood and blackness throughout history, an erasure that continues today.įrom a review in The Poetry Question, written by Chris Margolin: The approach was similar to James Baldwin’s dedication to unabashedly speak truth and the poetic sense prompted thoughts about June Jordan’s poems regarding similar concepts.įrom a review in Entropy Mag, written by Mel Ruth:īloodwarm is about racial violence and the challenges of being black in a country that undervalues a person based on their skin. These include the language used, confidence in each speaker’s voice, the overall tone, and direct approach to the discussion on Blackness.

There are components of this set of poems that remind me of other profound Black writers. In her latest chapbook, Bloodwarm, Byas examines and explores the relationship between existing in a Black body and how a white centric society imposes on that. In reportage from a life where the dangers of racism are always lurking, Byas has created a triumphant rejoinder.įrom a review in StorySouth, written by Cat Robinson: From a review in River Mouth Review, written by Risa Denenbeg: