Terah Shelton HarrisRezensionen

A story about one family’s legacy and fight to hold onto their Kingdom, formerly the Solomon plantation that their family once worked as slaves and now own. The patriarch drives the story but it’s his and his adult children, who are so different from one another, and their lives that are intertwined in the details and give the breath and flavor to the plot. Interesting and slippery laws that allow the rich to buy the land belonging to the poor out from under them and when so much is ‘stitched together by lies’ things start unraveling quickly. You’ll be rooting for the Solomons, both to keep their land, and to find themselves amidst the chaos.
*I received an arc from the publisher through NetGalley for an honest review

"Long After We Are Gone" by Terah Shelton Harris is a compelling and evocative exploration of family, secrets, and redemption. The novel centers around the Solomon siblings, who return to their North Carolina home, known as “The Kingdom,” following their father’s unexpected death to save their ancestral land from being sold. Their father's last words, “Don't let the white man take The Kingdom,” set the stage for a powerful family drama.

The characters in this novel are incredibly relatable and endearing, each with their own set of flaws and vulnerabilities. I couldn't help but like them all, despite their imperfections and the questionable choices they sometimes made. Junior, the eldest, is secretly in love with another man despite being married. Mance, the second son, struggles with his temper and legal troubles. CeCe, the eldest daughter, faces the consequences of embezzling money from her firm’s clients. Tokey, the youngest, grapples with her sense of belonging and harmful coping mechanisms. Each sibling's struggle is depicted with sensitivity and depth, making their journeys both heart-wrenching and inspiring. Ellis, who was treated like one of the siblings, was a voice of reason and an anchor for the siblings.

Harris masterfully tells the story through alternating viewpoints, giving each sibling a voice and a chance to reveal their deepest secrets and struggles.

The novel is a searing portrait of the power of family and the importance of letting go of things that no longer serve us. It explores the burden of familial expectations and the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children.

I highly recommend this novel to anyone looking for a deeply emotional read.

If you love character-driven stories, this one is for you.
It almost goes without saying, but Alana was my favorite character.
I did not like aspects of the romance. I picked this book up expecting some romance, but not as much as there was. I was a lot more interested in literally every other aspect of the story.
The narrators were great.

3.5 Stars

Content: scattered language, child born of r*pe, fatally ill characters, a scene or two that was easy to skip

I enjoyed the book and the plot line, but the father who only speaks in stanzas of poetry was totally annoying. I had to remove one star.
After she is raped and discovers she is pregnant, Sara leaves Savannah to start her life over in Maine where she has some legal protection from her rapist and his powerful family. As her daughter grows older, Sara finds she needs to return to Savannah as her father faces a terminal illness. She discovers that her father has befriended her rapists twin brother and allows him to fund his book store renovation where he continues to work. Both David and Sara develop feelings for each other.

King Solomon has died suddenly at his family home, dubbed the Kingdom. The Kingdom is an heir property, family land jointly owned by descendants of a deceased person from the time the Solomon family worked the land as slaves. Now, King's children, Junior, Mance, Tokey and Cece return to the Kingdom to deal with King's death, each carrying a heavy secret of their own. The siblings learn that the Kingdom comes with a complicated path forward as large corporations swoop in on vague legalities to take the Kingdom's land. While trying to save their home, each sibling is also trying to save themselves. Junior is finally figuring out his sexuality while trying not to alienate the family he has built. Mance is dealing with his aggression while learning of his son's disability. Tokey is fighting an eating disorder while wondering why she doesn't quite fit in with her family. Cece is worrying about the consequences she will have to face from embezzling thousands of dollars from her law firm's clients. Each sibling will have to face their individual problems in order to move ahead with saving the Kingdom.

Long After We Are Gone is an emotional family drama. Told from alternating points of view of each sibling, the characters, their secrets and how they work through them take center stage. I do wish there was a better delineation between each sibling's viewpoint through each chapter. I was very interested in heir properties and how families used this to keep their property within the family only for it to become a tenuous legal situation down the road, one more issue keeping land from African American families. I was very interested in how each of the siblings dealt with their problems in secret while having strong family bonds. I didn't particularly care for more than one sibling more than another and they weren't particularly sympathetic characters, however, they were very realistic and each had interesting journeys. Long After We Are Gone examines how secrets can create larger problems and feed into generational trauma.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review.½

Book club read.½

It definitely took me awhile to become vested in this story because the narrator's cadence was sort of robotic. However, the storyline finally grabbed me or maybe I got used to the narrator and finished the book. Again, this was a book recommended by Libby and made available to everyone. The last time they did this , the book which I liked, was so controversial that I was afraid to leave a review! So, maybe Libby likes to sponsor books that get people talking!

I could not out this one down and want to reread it. A rape victim pregnant with the rapist’s child leaves her home to live in Maine for 8 years because laws there protect her daughter from the father. When her own father becomes deathly ill she returns to Savannah for him and must learn to forgive and trust again.

Sara Manchester was raped at 18 years old by a son of a prominent and wealthy family in Savannah, Georgia. Daniel and David Welty are twin brothers with a younger sister, Naomi who was killed at 15 years old in a car crash. Sara takes Daniel to court and he is convicted of rape with the help of David, getting ten years in prison. Eight years later Sara is in Maine with an 8-year-old daughter, Alana. When she discovered she was pregnant, she left town as soon as possible with no intention of ever coming back due to the animosity of the town people and the twins' mother, Birdie, who refuses to admit that Daniel raped Sara. David also left town to become an astrophysicist. One night in Alaska he thinks he sees the ghost of his sister, Naomi, telling him to go back home. Sara is also drawn back to Savannah because her father, the proprietor of the bookshop, Poetry and Prose, has an aneurysm with 3 to 6 months to live. Daniel and David, who has now renamed himself Jacob, are both extremely smart and Alana is a genius. At 8-years-old, she is trying to solve "unsolvable" equations. When Jacob sees Alana, he recognizes her as part of his family since she bears a strong resemblance to his sister. Sara had told no one she was pregnant, fearing interference from Daniel's family. At this time Daniel is going to be released on parole, but he is also battling cancer. The rest of the book deals with Sara, Jacob, and Alana's relationship and the journey to forgiveness by Sara and Jacob.

Book Review: One Summer in Savannah
Stars: 3 x 5
Author: Terah Shelton Harris @terahsharris
Publisher: Source Books @sourcebooks
Thank you @netgalley for this ARC

Sarah Lancaster and her daughter Alana live a quiet life in Maine.
Sarah is from Savannah but left there years ago after a brutal sexual assault.
Sarah is a poet and lyricist and her daughter is pretty much a math genious. Sarah and Alana are living a wonderful life when Sarah receives news that her father is ill.
He has a brain bleed and she needs to heads home to Savannah to say goodbye.

Jacob is also back in Savannah. Jacob had testified at his twin brother’s trial for assaulting Sarah. His testimony help put his brother David in jail. Because of this his relationship with his family is not so great.

Sarah stays to help her Dad at his book store and this allows him to get to know his granddaughter. During this time Sarah runs into Jacob and their two worlds collide.
Jacob soon realizes that Alana is his brother David’s son.

Sarah and Jacob both have to deal with the past and learn forgiveness. Slowly Sarah and Jacob start to become closer and they will learn love is greater than all.

The author writes about a difficult subject which was hard to read about at times.
The subject of rape, resentfulness along with forgiveness is hard for any woman. This was a well written story. The one problem I did have was the relationship between Sarah and Jacob as Jacob is his brother’s identical twin. I had to come to the realization much like Sarah did that just because two people look alike they are very often different.

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Excellent book. A father who speaks in poetry. Trauma and forgiveness is the theme. Lovely child. I think an epilogue would have been nice.

“Trauma changes you, hardens you, leaves its scars.”
I have been waiting for a book that I can’t put down, that would take my breath away, One Summer in Savannah is it.
A woman wronged viciously, in turn protects the outcome of that savagery with all she has. Running, hiding, then finally fighting and trusting someone other than herself takes a lot of work.
Don’t let the cover fool you, this is not a trivial piece. (Sorry, a better cover is needed please!) Harris’ novel is heavy then light, with poetry, astrophysics, mathematics and genius, rape, victim shaming, fear and forgiveness, One Summer in Savannah gives you all the feels, in so many ways.
Wholly unique in its plot and delivery, artfully executed and heartbreakingly real, I was not expecting the breadth of this story and that made it all the better.
*I received an arc from the publisher through NetGalley for an honest review

One Summer in Savannah is a beautiful novel. I wasn’t crazy about the premise, selecting it based solely on its setting in a Savannah bookshop. But the writing kept pulling me in. The poetry was a nice surprise, and I think there was just a little bit of magic that pulled the strings together. I didn’t want it to end, and am still thinking about the characters.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a chance to read and review this novel.½