First published 2025
New Orleans, 1866. Coleman receives an unexpected letter from his former master Mr. Harper, summoning him to Mexico. Two years earlier, Harper had taken Coleman's sister June across the border, hoping to escape the post-war South where slavery no longer existed. Coleman has waited in Louisiana, serving the Harper family and believing June would return. The letter seems like answered prayers. Coleman cannot know what June has endured on the frontier under Harper's control. When disaster derails Coleman's journey, he finds himself fleeing through the Mexican desert with Harper's daughter Florence. Two corrupt brothers pursue them, determined to collect money they claim they are owed. Coleman and June navigate the dangerous, waterless landscape separately, each learning that freedom cannot always be waited for. Sometimes it must be seized.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 19th-century
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family, freedom
Setting: New Orleans, Mexico, Louisiana, Mexican Desert
Period: 1866, Post-Civil War
320 pages · Hardcover · Little, Brown and Company
Content warnings: slavery, violence