Red at the Bone

The Times' '100 Best Summer Reads' 2020

Longlisted for the Women's Prize 2020

'Sublime' – Candice Carty-Williams

'An epic in miniature' – Tayari Jones

'A banger' – Ta-Nehisi Coates

'Generous and big-hearted' – Brit Bennett

'A true spell of a book' – Ocean Vuong

'A proclamation' – R.O. Kwon

'Pure poetry' – Observer

'A sharply focused gem' – Sunday Times

'Will remind you why you love reading' – Stylist

'Haunting' – Guardian

'Prose that sings off the page' – Mail on Sunday

'As seductive as a Prince bop' – O, The Oprah Magazine

'Urgent, vital insights into questions of class, gender, race, history, queerness and sex' – New York Times

Brooklyn, 2001. It is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, she wears a special custom-made dress - the very same dress that was sewn for Melody's mother, for a celebration that ultimately never took place.

Unfurling the history of Melody's family - from the 1921 Tulsa race massacre to post 9/11 New York - Red at the Bone explores sexual desire, identity, class, and parenthood, as it looks at the ways in which young people must so often make fateful decisions about their lives before they have even begun to figure out who they are.