Shannon Sanders brings a modern sensibility to the venerable sweeping-family-saga tradition in this immersive, multigenerational novel. Aubrey Lamb is underemployed and financially struggling when she inherits a stake in the Tennessee farm that’s been in her family for generations. But being a co-owner is no simple matter. She has to share the property with a lot of strong-minded members of the Lamb family—not to mention the ghosts of those who came before. With the sauntering pace of a summer evening, Sanders lets the history of the farm unfold. That story auspiciously begins with Thomas Lamb, who buys the parcel from the very same family that once enslaved his own, the Lanyers. The weight of this aspect (and of Black land ownership in general) adds particularly meaningful colour to the story, especially as the modern Lanyers are intent on buying the farm back. This is a gorgeous, haunting tale of Black ancestry and generational inheritance.

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