Ida, in Love and in Trouble
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
For fans of Bridgerton and The Davenports comes a sweeping historical novel from bestselling author Veronica Chambers about courageous (and flirtatious) Ida B. Wells as she navigates society parties and society prejudices to become a civil rights crusader.
Before she became a warrior, Ida B. Wells was an incomparable flirt with a quick wit and a dream of becoming a renowned writer. The eldest child of newly freed parents who thrived in a community that pulsated with hope and possibility after the Civil War, Ida had a big heart, big ambitions, and even bigger questions: How to be a good big sister when her beloved parents perish in a yellow fever epidemic? How to launch her career as a teacher? How to make and keep friends in a society that seems to have no place for a woman who speaks her own mind? And – always top of mind for Ida – how to find a love that will let her be the woman she dreams of becoming?
Ahead of her time by decades, Ida B. Wells pioneered the field of investigative journalism with her powerful reporting on violence against African Americans. Her name became synonymous with courage and an unflinching demand for racial and gender equality. But there were so many facets to Ida Bell and critically acclaimed writer Veronica Chamber unspools her full and colorful life as Ida comes of age in the rapidly changing South, filled with lavish society dances and parties, swoon-worthy gentleman callers, and a world ripe for the taking.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chambers (Finish the Fight) crafts a fictionalized account of the professional and romantic life of civil rights figure Ida B. Wells in this expansive historical novel. As the daughter of formerly enslaved people who died when she was a child, teenage Ida is determined to overcome the adversities she faces as a Black woman in America to make something of herself and her family name ("If fear was insistent on shackling itself to her side, then it better be prepared to go all the places Ida intended to go"). Starting with Ida's career as a teacher in Memphis, where she also wrote articles about race relations for Black-owned newspapers, Chambers chronicles Ida's interpersonal developments, such as the years in which she kept up correspondence with several suitors. Selections from protagonist Ida's columns, letters to and from romantic prospects, and entries from her diary are interspersed throughout the narrative, which reads more like a biography than a youthful imagining of the subject's life. Still, the creator's thorough research will allow readers to uncover new insight into the figure's experience navigating societal standards for women—especially Black women—in the late 19th century. Ages 14–up.
