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There are currently 24 member reviews
for This Here Is Love
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Helen P. (Lynn, MA)
Heartbreaking, haunting, history
THIS HERE IS LOVE will captivate you from the first page as you follow slaves and indentured servants seeking a path to freedom. The characters are authentic and SO earnest in their plan to seek their freedom as their selfish plantation owners think only of revenue while breeding and treating their captives as property for profit. Every character draws you into their story with dignity, hope, and acceptance to their plight.
At times this book is difficult to read and know what they endured by their masters. Realizing how their capture cemented them to this life in
1692 and beyond. was upsetting. As I read this novel, I was struck was by the masters'' perceptions that they were not bright, how the workers had to subjugate their needs and fawn over their owners who thought so little of them. This book is written with respect for each character and offers insight into the courage of these slaves as they coped with the owners lack of humanity.
I am amazed that this was Joy Perry's debut novel. This book seemed very important to her to share this shameful history with the reader. I look forward to her next project.
I am astounded that this is Joy Perry's first novel. Beautifully written with this history. I look forward to her next project.
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Patricia L. (Seward, AK)
This Here is Love
This Here is Love is a beautifully written and, at times, difficult to digest story of the slave trade during the late 1600's to early 1700 Virginia. Princess Joy L. Perry has created memorable characters whose experiences, as slaves and slave traders, more clearly defines the time and place.
Bless and David are owned by Jack Crewe. Their separate journeys to Crewe's Way Station are brutal. As long as they do Jack's bidding on the 'innovative' slave trader's way station and work the farm, Bless and David's existence could be a reprieve from their previous lives. Yet their real value to Jack is an invisible noose around their necks.
Jack Crewe arrived in Virginia from Ireland in the hold of The Venture. His father and pregnant mother were seeking a way out of poverty. Jack witnessed cruelty and heartbreak that would shape his future similar to Bless and David. But his skin color provided a different path.
"Men understood things that boys did not: Being the "richest nigger traders," or even a middling slave jailer, had to cost somebody something. Greatness had to cost somebody something. …Jack, would have to learn that prosperity came at the expense of those Negro boys and not his own."
Perry's telling of this time period is both gritty and elegant. This Here is Love is highly recommended for those who seek to understand the past with a wide view and use that understanding to make the present better for everyone.
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Barbara B. (Harlingen, TX)
This Here Is Love
In her novel Princess Joy L Perry makes readers believe her characters are real people. Real people she knows and loves as family and friends.
In 1619 Jack sails to America with his family and other indentured people. He has hope. Odofoley sails to America on a slave ship. She has no hope .Both grow up struggling to find love and security.
Their stories are told in alternating chapters .As the years pass and the number of people entering their lives increase so do the number of chapters. .Chapters were titled with the names of the people in the episode. I admit I often had to pause "now who are these people".
Princess Joy's beautiful writing set me in a place and with feelings I did not expect. Each reader will have to decide if there are any happy endings.
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Stephanie K. (Glendale, AZ)
Sorrow Upon Sorrow
While the conditions that the characters lived under were worse abuse than the animals suffered, the people of "This Here Is Love" by Princess Joy L. Perry somehow kept their dreams and built their lives, nonetheless.
Seventeenth-century slavery in America is graphically and poignantly shown in this novel that literally pulls no punches. I admired the way in which the author took us through the big sorrows and tiny joys of the many individual slaves. I was in tears time and again over the ruthless way nearly all Africans were treated in the 1670s, whether having their money, lands and possessions stolen or their trust, belief and innocence.
The enslaved people who occupy the pages of the book win over our minds and hearts effortlessly. Their resilience and courage will inspire anyone who reads this account, and the characters themselves will stay with you a long time.
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Patricia S.
A Powerful Novel
Set against the turbulent backdrop of late 17th- and early 18th-century Virginia, This Here is Love by Princess Joy L. Perry is a searing historical novel that explores the entangled destinies of four families. With a particular focus on two enslaved individuals, Bless and David, and the enslaver Jack Dane/Crewe, Perry crafts a narrative where childhood traumas cast long shadows over the lives and choices of her characters.
The emotional landscape of this novel is both vast and intimate. Perry excels at rendering her characters with remarkable depth. Each is portrayed in a nuanced and authentic manner. Perry's characters are flawed, sometimes unlikeable, and always profoundly human. The reader is drawn into their joys, sorrows, moments of tenderness, and eruptions of fury in world engulfed in the horrors of slavery.
As the lives of Bless, David, and Jack progress and become intertwined, Perry's storytelling shines. The convergence of their fates is handled with a deftness that keeps the reader engaged and invested. The prose is evocative and immersive, drawing the reader into the physical and psychological realities of the era.
"This Here is Love" is an unflinching examination of slavery's brutality, depicting violence and its lasting physical and emotional scars. The novel explores identity, love, and the enduring resilience of the human spirit. It is not for those seeking a light, escapist read—rather, it is a powerful, thought-provoking work that demands reflection.
"This Here is Love" is a testament to the complexities of history and the indomitable nature of hope. My thanks to W.W. Norton & Company and the author for providing an Advanced Reader Copy.
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Stephen B. (Richburg, NY)
A Complex Work of Historical Fiction
Princess Joy L. Perry's This Here Is Love is a complex work of historical fiction set in 17th-century Virginia, a time when the lines between freedom and bondage were brutally drawn. The novel follows three characters—Bless, a young, enslaved woman searching for a sense of agency; David, the son of a freedman desperate to keep his family safe; and Jack, a Scots-Irish indentured servant whose choices blur the line between survival and betrayal.
The book's greatest strength lies in its language. Perry writes with lyrical intensity, often capturing the harsh beauty of Tidewater Virginia in prose that feels both poetic and precise. Her characters are fully human, filled with longing, fear, and flashes of hope, which gives the story a deep emotional pull. Readers will find themselves invested in Bless and David's struggles, in particular, and the ways they fight for dignity in an unforgiving world.
Yet the novel can be difficult to read. The pacing is deliberately slow, and Perry does not shy away from the violence and cruelty of the era. While this honesty gives the book power, it may overwhelm some readers. Ultimately, This Here Is Love is moving and ambitious, though not always easy to embrace.
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Emily B. (Ellicott City, MD)
Beautiful, devastating and real
Wow. Just wow. I am still thinking about this one days after finishing.
Three intertwined stories of slaves, indentured servants, and masters in Virginia in the late 1600s-early 1700s. We travel through the years with the main characters of Bless (slave), David (slave of a freed father), and Jack (white indentured servant turned slave master) who face impossible situations and irreparable decisions.
The characters were honest and true, and the events so very real. And oh boy, the author did not hold back in her depiction of slavery in the U.S. - rightfully so and to all our benefit. Now more than ever, we need to be reminded of the brutality and devastation that laid waste to individuals and families of Black slaves.
This was not a light read;
instead was full of brutal and gut-wrenching storytelling with harsh but so beautiful writing. Each betrayal was met with another character showing deep love and care, even in the face of unfathomable circumstances.
Needless to say, the book was deep and thought-provoking. Through her writing, the author seemed to be asking the reader, what would you do? How would you survive? What lengths would you go to for the people you love?
I struggled with Part I of the book, as the characters had not yet come together and their stories seemed disjointed. Then Part II, the author hit her groove, everything came together and I was completely invested in the rest of the book.
TY BookBrowse for the ARC!
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