Description

‘Exactly the novel we need right here, right now’ TAYARI JONES

‘Astonishing’ JODI PICOULT

‘Triumphant’ ELLE

A woman learns the astonishing truth of her family’s ties to a vanished American Kingdom in this riveting new novel from the bestselling and award-winning author of Take My Hand
Nikki Berry hasn’t seen her estranged grandmother Rita in years – until an unexpected phone call summons her to the hills of North Carolina. There, Nikki learns the astonishing truth of her family’s past: her formerly enslaved ancestor Luella was the queen of a now vanished American Kingdom.

The Kingdom of the Happy Land sounds like a fairytale. But beneath its legend, family secrets lie buried deep in the hills . . .

Now, Nikki must protect her family’s legacy before – like so much else – it is stolen away.

Publisher Review

What a story! Happy Land is an exhilarating tale of perseverance, identity, and love that echoes across generations. This story of formerly enslaved families in the Blue Ridge Mountains who built a community against all odds will stay with me for a long time — Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of BLACK CAKE Picture a time when a kingdom existed inside the confines of the Carolinas – a time when freedpeople were royalty. What if that was your history, instead of the trauma of enslavement and generational poverty? As Dolen Perkins-Valdez says in this astonishing, historical-based novel – a family tree isn’t just something you draw on paper. It’s only when you’re rooted in the soil that your family once inhabited that your imagination can brush the sky — Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of BY ANY OTHER NAME