Don't miss the extraordinary new novel from Sue Monk Kidd, The Book of Longings - published on 21st April 2020, and available to pre-order now The Invention of Wings: The No. 1 New York Times bestseller. A powerful and extraordinary novel about the unlikely friendship between two exceptional women during the last years of slavery in the US. From the celebrated author of the multi-million-copy-bestselling novel The Secret Life of Bees. 'Fascinating... A splendid tribute to a pair of true heroines' The Times 'Wonderful - well-written, moving and engaging by turns, and always compelling' Daily Mail 'A remarkable novel that heightened my sense of what it meant to be a woman - slave or free' Oprah Winfrey 'A resonant, illuminating novel' Observer Sarah Grimke is the middle daughter. Her mother says she's difficult and her father says she's remarkable. On Sarah's eleventh birthday, Hetty 'Handful' Grimke is taken from the slave quarters she shares with her mother, wrapped in lavender ribbons, and presented to Sarah as a gift. Sarah knows that what she does next will unleash a world of trouble. She also knows that she cannot accept another person as a present. And so, indeed, the trouble begins ... A powerful, sweeping novel, inspired by real events, and set in the American Deep South in the nineteenth century, The Invention of Wings evokes a world of shocking contrasts, of beauty and ugliness, of otherwise respectable people living daily with cruelty they fail to recognise; and celebrates the power of friendship and sisterhood against all the odds.
