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Fifth BornWhen Odessa Blackburn is three years old, she sees her grandmother for the last time, and so begins her story as the fifth born of eight children in a troubled family. Molested by her father, Odessa is also the sole witness to a murder he commits. Her mother guards both secrets and joins her husband in ostracizing their fifth born from the rest of her siblings. As Odessa grows, so do her troubles. She ultimately separates herself from her parents and siblings into a new reality that prompts memory and revelation. Her choices for survival provoke an outcome that will forever alter the carefully maintained lies of her childhood. Zelda Lockhart's Fifth Born is lyrically written, poignant and powerful in its exploration of how secrets can tear families apart and unravel people's lives. Set in rural Mississippi and St. Louis, Missouri, Fifth Born is a story of loss and redemption, as Odessa walks away from those who she believes to be her kin to discover the meaning of family. Fifth Born was a Barnes & Noble Discovery selection, and recently won a finalist award for debut fiction from the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Foundation.
Click here to buy "Fifth Born" at Amazon.com. Click here to read an excerpt from "Fifth Born". Cold Running CreekCold Running Creek won a 2008 Honor Fiction Award from the Black Caucus of The American Library Association. It was also selected as North Carolina A&T University's Community Read for 2008/09 incoming students. During one of the most tumultuous times for the North American continent (pre and post Civil War) three generations of women both Native American and African American, struggle to be free. Raven, the main character of the first two chapters of the novel, is the daughter of Choctaw Native Americans who have escaped the relocation from Mississippi to Oklahoma Territory in hopes of negotiating their rights in the political maze of their changing landscape. In the event of faltered plans, her mother and father, ishki and inki have charged Raven with the responsibility of her two younger siblings. The three children are the sole survivors of the resulting tragedy. Though eventually Raven marries a half French, half Choctaw man of prominence, and becomes the proud Misses of LeFlore plantation, she bares the initial, seemingly indelible wounds of the novel, and extends those to her daughter, Lilly, a half black half Choctaw infant who Raven raises as the full-blood heir to LeFlore. As the upshot of a second political miscalculation of American conquest, Lilly is captured and sold into the last three years of slavery. Though her actual bondage is short, her escape from her own enslavement spans to mid-life. She is always waiting for something to change. One day she abandons her two daughters and commits a dreadful act against her husband. Though horrifying, her lashing out is the very catalyst for her freedom. In an ending that peaks to a crescendo of redemption, Lilly’s salvation brings with it freedom for two generations of male and female ancestors of both Choctaw and African heritage. Cold Running Creek is enlightening in its untold historical truths, and relevant to all time with its soul-stirring revelations. With a chorus of swamps, voodoo, floods, creeks and rivers, Cold Running Creek is rich, passionate, and leaves the reader breathless.
Click here to buy "Cold Running Creek" at Amazon.com. Click here to read an excerpt from "Cold Running Creek".
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