The Wedding Gift

"[A] compelling and fierce historical novel, where the slave master gives his white daughter his black daughter as a wedding gift," based on a true story (Henry Louis Gates, Jr.).

In 1852, when prestigious Alabama plantation owner Cornelius Allen gives his daughter Clarissa's hand in marriage, she takes with her a gift: Sarah—her slave and her half-sister. Raised by an educated mother, Clarissa is not the proper Southern belle she appears to be, with ambitions of loving whom she chooses. Sarah equally hides behind the façade of being a docile house slave as she plots to escape. Both women bring these tumultuous secrets and desires with them to their new home, igniting events that spiral into a tale beyond what you ever imagined possible. Told through the alternating viewpoints of Sarah and Theodora Allen, Cornelius' wife, Marlen Suyapa Bodden's The Wedding Gift is an intimate portrait of slavery and the 19th Century South that will leave readers breathless.

An inspiring read for historical-fiction fans, especially those who like strong female narrators.

"Bodden weaves a page-turning tangled web of misogyny, greed, scandal and violence in this powerful story about races colliding against the backdrop of America's darkest era." —PW Starred Review

"You have in your hands a story of the tangled motives and self-destructive passions when whites and blacks became this close during the time of slavery—all told at a pell mell pace." —Tom Wolfe, New York Times–bestselling author of Back to Blood

"Fascinating, intriguing—a great story!" —Kathleen Grissom, New York Times–bestselling author of The Kitchen House