-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
A Novel
by Erin Crosby Eckstine
A young girl must face a life-altering decision after awakening her sister's ghost, navigating truths about love, friendship, and power as the Civil War looms.
Sixteen years old and enslaved since she was born, Junie has spent her life on Bellereine Plantation in Alabama, cooking and cleaning alongside her family, and tending to the white master's daughter, Violet. Her daydreams are filled with poetry and faraway worlds, while she spends her nights secretly roaming through the forest, consumed with grief over the sudden death of her older sister, Minnie.
When wealthy guests arrive from New Orleans, hinting at marriage for Violet and upending Junie's life, she commits a desperate act—one that rouses Minnie's spirit from the grave, tethered to this world unless Junie can free her. She enlists the aid of Caleb, the guests' coachman, and their friendship soon becomes something more. Yet as long-held truths begin to crumble, she realizes Bellereine is harboring dark and horrifying secrets that can no longer be ignored.
With time ticking down, Junie begins to push against the harsh current that has controlled her entire life. As she grapples with an increasingly unfamiliar world in which she has little control, she is forced to ask herself: When we choose love and liberation, what must we leave behind?
"Eckstine combines the lyricism of Jesmyn Ward and Toni Morrison with the speculative historical fiction of Tananarive Due and Leslye Penelope in a stunning debut that will also appeal to fans of Percival Everett's James." —Booklist (starred review)
"A compelling portrait of the psychological, emotional, and social degradations of slavery...Eckstine is a talented writer to watch. Featuring a spirited protagonist, this compelling mix of the historical and the supernatural will resonate." —Kirkus Reviews
"[A] finely crafted debut...The complex plot and righteous protagonist will keep readers turning the pages. Eckstine evokes the earthly and supernatural to equally powerful effect in this richly layered tale." —Publishers Weekly
"The richly textured prose quickly pulled me into the protagonist's treacherous yet magical world. I was drawn to the story of Junie, an enslaved teenager with a love of books and nature who must navigate difficult truths about her family and friendships in order to survive her times." —Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake
"Junie is the beating heart of this powerful and moving coming-of-age novel, insisting on her right to language, love, and a life on her own terms. Rich in historical detail and packed with suspense, this is a story of survival I will not forget." —Erin Swan, author of Walk the Vanished Earth
"A haunting tale about power, family, and the difficult choices we sometimes have to make for (or in spite of) the people we love. Here is a novel that takes a clear-eyed look at the brutality of slavery without ever depriving the people harmed by it of their agency and humanity." —Rita Chang-Eppig, author of Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea
This information about Junie 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.
Erin Crosby Eckstine is an author of speculative historical fiction, personal essays, and anything else she's in the mood for. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Eckstine grew up between the South and Los Angeles before moving to New York City to attend Barnard College. She earned a master's in secondary English education from Stanford University and taught high school English for six years. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their cats.
If you liked Junie, try these:
by Bisi Adjapon
Published 2024
The acclaimed author of The Teller of Secrets returns with a gut-wrenching, yet heartwarming, story about a young Ghanaian woman's struggle to make a life in the US, and the challenges she must overcome.
by Michael Farris. Smith
Published 2023
In this "tense, brooding" novel, a young woman returns home with her child to her ghost-haunted father, while a religious extremist hunts the stormridden territory to find the girl who may be a savior in the apocalypse. (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)
by Ashley C.. Ford
Published 2022
One of the most prominent voices of her generation debuts with an extraordinarily powerful memoir: the story of a childhood defined by the looming absence of her incarcerated father.
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why…
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
