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A Most Anticipated Book for 2026 according to the New York Times, New Statesman, NPR, Guardian, Independent, Financial Times, Daily Express, Mirror, Scotsman, Vulture, TIME and USA Today

‘Smart and funny and deftly profound. This is Tayari Jones’s very best work.’ Ann Patchett, author of Tom Lake

A yearning for their missing mothers pulls Vernice and Annie apart. It will take a devastating tragedy to bring them back together, in the spellbinding new novel from award-winning author, Tayari Jones

Vernice and Annie are ‘cradle friends’, born days apart in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, both destined never to know their mothers. The girls are inseparable, bound by a friendship far deeper than sisterhood. But this is the American south in the 1950s. Black girls like Vernice and Annie have to fight for every opportunity they can, and neither one can build the future they hope for in Honeysuckle. 

Gradually, inevitably, the girls drift apart. Vernice pursues her education; Annie is lured by the promise of a heady first love affair and a growing obsession with finding her mother. But her search pulls her even further into a world of danger that soon leaves her oldest friend battling to save her. 

Tayari Jones returns with an exuberant, richly told story about mothers, daughters, and a lifelong friendship that is as dangerous as it is unbreakable.