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Booklist
Riley follows her critically acclaimed historical novel Island Queen (2021) with a gripping tale celebrating the strength and resilience of exceptional Black women. Gran Toya is a West African warrior and leader of the minos (Dahomey Amazonians to the Europeans) until she is betrayed by an enemy and sold into slavery in the French colony of Saint Domingue, the future Haiti. Equipped with exceptional fortitude and healing powers, she soon becomes a mother figure to the enslaved, especially the young revolutionary, Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Marie-Claire Bonheur is the granddaughter of a wealthy white man and the woman he enslaved. Now her love for Jean-Jacques threatens to undo even the small protections her grandfather's position affords her family. As tensions reach a breaking point on the island, Gran Toya and Marie-Claire work together to play pivotal roles in the battle for winning and securing the independence of Haiti and its people. Riley's women-focused and illuminating retelling of the Haitian Revolution, one of the most successful uprisings of enslaved people in the world, is emotionally rich, deeply detailed, and unforgettable.
- Enobong Tommelleo
Author of ISLAND QUEEN and A DUKE, THE LADY, AND A BABY Vanessa Riley's SISTER MOTHER WARRIOR in which she returns to the West Indies to tell the untold true story of two remarkable Black woman, Victoria Montou and Marie-Claire Bonheur who helped shaped the Haitian Revolution, to Rachel Kahan at William Morrow, in a very nice deal, by Sarah Younger at the Nancy Yost Literary Agency (World).