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Book Summary and Reviews of Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Happy Land

by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

  • Readers' Rating (27):
  • Publishes:
  • Apr 8, 2025, 368 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

A woman learns the astonishing truth of her family's ties to a vanished American Kingdom in this riveting new novel from the New York Times bestselling, NAACP Image Award-winning author of Take My Hand.

Nikki Berry hasn't seen her grandmother in years, due to a mysterious estrangement inherited from her mother. So when the elder calls out of the blue with an urgent request for Nikki to visit her in the hills of western North Carolina, Nikki hesitates only for a moment. After years of silence in her family, she's determined to learn the truth while she still can.

But instead of answers about the recent past, Mother Rita tells Nikki an incredible story of a kingdom on this very mountain, and of her great-great-great grandmother, Luella, who would become its queen. 

It sounds like the makings of a fairy tale—royalty among a community of freed people. But the more Nikki learns about the Kingdom of the Happy Land, and the lives of those who dwelled in the ruins she discovers in the woods, the more she realizes how much of her identity and her family's secrets are wrapped up in these hills. Because this land is their legacy, and it will be up to her to protect it before it, like so much else, is stolen away.

Inspired by true events, Happy Land is a transporting multi-generational novel about the stories that shape us and the dazzling courage it takes to dream.

Please be aware that this discussion may contain spoilers!

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What are you reading this week? (2024-10-31)
I loved Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Looking forward to Happy Land.
-Gabi_J

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"What a story! Happy Land is an exhilarating tale of perseverance, identity, and love that echoes across generations. This story of formerly enslaved families in the Blue Ridge Mountains who built a community against all odds will stay with me for a long time." —Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake

This information about Happy Land was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Versana P. (Franklin, LA)

Lost History
I loved the way this book took us back to the past to help inform what is happening in the present. This book did an excellent job of keeping a part of history that is rarely talked about alive. I highly recommend this read and I hope you will get it into the hands of young people.

Becky S. (Springfield, MO)

A little known piece of history !
Historical fiction is my favorite genre and I really enjoyed this book! I love learning something new in a great book. I loved going back and forth in time to learn about Happy Land , in the 1800s and the struggle to keep the land in the present day. The relationship struggles in both time periods were realistic and kept me turning each page … I highly recommend this book for lovers of historical fiction or just a good , interesting read.

Ticey G. (Andover, KS)

Another Fantastic Historical Fiction Novel
I love historical fiction books that jump between the past and the present. I think it really showcases how much the past influences the present even if it was generations ago.

I had never heard of a Kingdom in the US and I found this fascinating and inspiring to see how a group of people banded together and created a loving society that worked together for the good of the people.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it.

Emily B. (Ellicott City, MD)

Love everything about Happy Land
I loved this book from the first page to the last and want everyone to read it!

In this dual timeline, Nikki (present time) is summoned from D.C. to North Carolina by her estranged grandmother, Mother Rita for an unknown reason. Before she'll tell Nikki why, Mother Rita insists that Nikki learn about her ancestors, specifically her great-great-great grandmother and their history with the physical land in N.C., once known as the Kingdom of Happy Land.

As with most dual timelines, I liked the present time but loved the past. Without giving any spoilers (this part is in the book description), I'm in awe of the men, women and children who came out of slavery physically and emotionally beaten and broken, and had the wherewithal to create new lives. Happy Land provides stunning insight into a real group of freedpeople who established their own community. The characters' connection and linkage to the land was beautifully told and so impactful.

This is my first Dolen Perkins-Valdez book (although truth be told, Take My Hand has been on my TBR for two years). Her writing is so lovely and easy, and flows nicely between timelines, a testament to her talent as that can easily feel choppy and messy but doesn't get even close here. The imagery is so vivid and clear I can picture every scene. The author's note gives more details on the community she based the book on, and I immediately began looking it up to learn more. She also touches on Blacks having their land wealth taken from them, which has true far-reaching and devastating impacts.

I would highly recommend Happy Land!

TY to BookBrowse and NetGalley for the digital ARC! I'll absolutely be buying a physical copy when it's released.

Lynne B. (Somersworth, NH)

Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
I have enjoyed Ms. Perkins-Valdez's historical fiction books since she began writing. Each one has enlightened us on a time in black history with excellent research to provide historic details and exhilarating characters that are unforgettable. Her newest book Happy Land is no exception. Again she has discovered a little known piece of black history which provides a suspenseful tale of two women's lives more than a century apart. One story is based on a real group of black formerly enslaved people who migrate from South Carolina to an area of western North Carolina where they seek safety and a chance to form their own community which they call a kingdom. They set up their own governing body and set about finding sources of income from working at the inn whose land they are settled upon and some of the men work in mines and for the railroad being built. The corresponding story centers on Nikki who is summoned by her grandmother to find her roots. The characters are all strong women who changed their fates and sought a better future for their children. This is a work of historical fiction which should not be missed.

Margaret H. (Covina, CA)

Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Happy Land combines history and storytelling: a pleasure to read. All the characters - worthy, unworthy, kind, cruel - are fully-fleshed and believable.

The Kingdom of the Happy Land is created during Reconstruction, when ex-slaves discovered that their new right to vote did not guarantee independence. Forming separate, independent communities becomes one alternative to living under inequity. Through the inhabitants of Happy Land that we learn the difficulties and the triumphs of such efforts. There is a time jump to the modern-day heirs of the kingdom who, for the most part, do not know about the richness of their heritage.

The history component contains a warning to property owners and would-be property owners to check paperwork in case of legal loopholes concerning ownership. The author's notes make the story even more worthwhile.

I recommend this clever book to writing students for its skillful weaving of a compelling tale with a real-world backbone, and to history students for its research methodology.

...21 more reader reviews

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Author Information

Dolen Perkins-Valdez Author Biography

Photo: Norman E. Jones

Dolen Perkins-Valdez is a graduate of Harvard and a former University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Wench; her fiction has appeared in The Kenyon Review, StoryQuarterly, StorySouth, and elsewhere. In 2011, she was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for fiction. She was also awarded the First Novelist Award by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Dolen received a DC Commission on the Arts Grant for her second novel Balm.

Dolen is the current Chair of the Board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. On behalf of the foundation, she has visited nearly every public high school in the District of Columbia to talk about the importance of reading and writing. She ...

... Full Biography
Link to Dolen Perkins-Valdez's Website

Name Pronunciation
Dolen Perkins-Valdez: VAL-dez

Other books by Dolen Perkins-Valdez at BookBrowse
  • Take My Hand jacket
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