Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs’s weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comic-book convention, Leia is swept off her barstool by a handsome, anonymous Batman. She remembers he was tall, black, and an excellent French kisser—but not much else.
The Caped Crusader leaves her with more than just a fond, fuzzy memory. She’s having a baby. Though Leia always wanted to fall in love and have a child, as a young woman she learned exactly what betrayal felt like. Before Leia can break the news of her impending single-motherhood to her conventional lily-white Southern family, her perfect stepsister Rachel’s marriage—to the very man who broke Leia’s heart all those years ago—implodes. Worse, she learns her beloved ninety-year-old grandmother, Birchie, has been hiding her dementia.
Heading seven hundred miles south to Birchville, Alabama—the small town her family founded generations ago—Leia plans to put her grandmother’s affairs in order and clean out her big Victorian house. Just when Leia thinks she’s got it all under control, she learns that Birchie is hiding more than her illness. A dangerous secret with roots that reach back to the Civil War is tucked away in an attic trunk. Its exposure threatens the family’s reputation and freedom, and will forever change the way Leia views her ancestors, herself, and her baby’s future.
This book is about as honest as it gets when it comes to viewing the south as it really is. I don't mean how outsiders see it. I don't mean how we wish it was. I mean as it is. I'm not a fan of comics, so I wasn't much into that aspect, but I love how it all ties in together. This book is a beautiful story of family and race relations in the modern south as seen through the eyes of a 38-year-old white woman, a comic nerd (her words), who is pregnant with a bi-racial child. When her grandmother becomes ill, she travels to the small town of Birchville, Alabama with the intention of shutting down and selling out the family home. Instead, she uncovers a terrible family secret that changes the way she sees herself, her family, and her own unborn child. I don't want to include spoilers. I will just say that I could not put this one down. It has been a long time since I have read a book that didn't bore me.I highly recommend this book.
Read this book if:
*you love southern fiction
*you love mysteries
*you love family fiction/ sisters
*you love stories about race and race relations
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