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A Novel
by Princess Joy L. Perry
Book Reviewed by:Three people - two enslaved, one indentured - live beside each other, fighting, and sometimes failing, to be more than their pasts say they should be.
As the seventeenth century burns to a close in Tidewater, Virginia, America's character is wrought in the fires of wealth, race, and freedom.
Young Bless, the only child left to her enslaved mother, stubbornly crafts the terms of her vital existence. She stands as the lone bulwark between her mother and irreparable despair, her mother's only possibility of hope, as Bless reshapes the boundaries of love.
David is a helping child and a solace to his parents, and he gave a purpose to their trials. His survival hinges on his mother's shrewd intellect and ferocious fight, but his sustenance is his freed Black father's dream of emancipation for the entire family.
Jack Dane, a Scots-Irish boy, sails to Britain's colonies when his father sells him into indentured servitude as an escape from poverty. There Jack learns from the rich the value of each person's life.
A breathtaking, haunting, and epic saga, This Here Is Love intimately intertwines us with these beautifully drawn, unforgettable American characters. Bless, taken to serve the slaveowner's daughter, must decide where she belongs: with the enslaved or above them. David, sold away from his people, retreats into himself even as he yearns to unite with others. Jack, acting impetuously, changes his fortune, but will doing so sacrifice his humanity?
All three come together on Jack's land. As they face and challenge each other, they will relinquish and remake beliefs about family and freedom, even as they confront the limits of love.
Ask the Author mug winners
Here are the latest BookBrowse mug winners for the questions to our visiting authors: Eve J. Chung ( https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/4821/daughters-of-shandong Daughters of Shandong ): @Jorene_J Princess Joy L. Perry ( https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm...
-kim.kovacs
What did you think of this year's Best Books of 2025 list?
...n this list that I thought were stellar, but the biggest surprise was https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/5119/this-here-is-love This Here is Love by Princess Joy L. Perry. I actually think the title is somewhat off-putting, and I expected a romance, so I wasn't looking forward to reading it. But I quickly discovered it...
-kim.kovacs
Aspen Words Literary Prize 2026
...with a social impact." I've read three (on my fourth), and of those, https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/5119/this-here-is-love This Here is Love by Princess Joy L. Perry was the most impactful for me. I can see why the others, https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/20975/the-river-i...
-kim.kovacs
BookBrowsers ask Princess Joy L. Perry, author of This Here Is Love
Thanks for being here, Princess! It was a pleasure speaking with you. We're looking forward to your next book!
-kim.kovacs
Princess Joy L. Perry, author of This Here is Love
https://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm/author_number/4168/princess-joy-l-perry Princess Joy L. Perry , author of our First Impressions selection https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/5119/this-here-is-love This Here is Love , will be visiting with us this week. Please...
-kim.kovacs
What’s the last book you purchased? Why did you select it? Paperback, hardback or ebook?
@Lynne_G I just finished This Here is Love by Princess Joy L. Perry. As you probably saw, she'll be here next week so I hope you'll join the conversation. It's about enslaved individuals, so there's a fair amount of h...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (11/6/2025)
Let's see… So last week I was fortunate enough to read two absolutely wonderful novels. The first, https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/23451/the-young-will-remember The Young Will Remember by Eve J. Chung, won't be out until May - but be on the lookout for i...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (10/30/2025)
...but I'm not sure I'll have time. I need to get to https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/21037/this-here-is-love This Here is Love by Princess Joy L. Perry soon, so that may be next. Depends. In audiobook format, I'm down to the last two hours of The Cider House Rules, so should finish that up this week....
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? (7/17/2025)
Just started This Here Is Love, by Princess Joy L. Perry. A BookBrowse first impressions book. Just finished The Names, by Florence Knapp, and really enjoyed it. Can't believe it's a debut.
-jillg
This Here Is Love is a powerful and moving debut novel that pulls you deep into the lives of three unforgettable characters living at the close of the 17th century in Virginia. Princess Joy L. Perry writes with heart and honesty, showing how love, family, and freedom are tested in the harshest of times, conveying the grit and sorrow of slavery and indentured servitude (Jill). This book will affect me for a very long time. The story of enslaved and indentured people and how their stories are similar yet so very different. Ms. Perry writes from a poignant and deep perspective of people who are placed in horrible circumstances. How do you love someone that you know you could lose at any moment? How do you live when your child is certain to be taken from you? This Here Is Love will burrow into your soul and show you the pain of our historical past (Wendy F)...continued
Full Review
(717 words)
(Reviewed by First Impressions Reviewers).
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
In the tenderest of prose and the most compelling of storytelling, Princess Joy L. Perry has reached back centuries to our earliest national moments, writing of the confusion that occurs when power crosses love—but oh, how that love can survive! A love at the beginning and at the end. A love which is the sweetest human wisdom, the most merciful of legacies. Janet Peery, National Book Award finalist for The River Beyond the World
In the manner of Edward P. Jones's The Known World, this sweeping and greathearted novel presents a cast of unforgettable characters driven by their hopes and yearnings, men and women who in the face of the suffering and loss and violence of bondage manage to go about the 'brave business of love.' This is a beautiful book. Lawrence Hill, author of Someone Knows My Name, winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize
This Here is Love is an utterly riveting intergenerational saga of love, betrayal, theft and resilience. Princess Joy L. Perry laces every chapter with fireworks and unforgettable characters―all off-kilter, wounded and searching for solace in this epic tale of slavery and freedom.
In This Here Is Love, Princess Joy L. Perry tells the stories of Bless, David, and Jack as they grow from children into adulthood in the late 17th and early 18th centuries in Tidewater, Virginia. At first glance, they appear to be bound by shared hardship: Bless and David are enslaved, while Jack is an indentured servant. But as the novel unfolds, it becomes clear that their paths, though parallel in suffering, diverge sharply when it comes to power and possibility. Jack, initially powerless, eventually becomes an enslaver himself, a development that is only possible because he is white, and one that reflects the reality of this historical era in which indentured servants could rise in socioeconomic status by stepping on the backs of the ...
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What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading, you wish the author that wrote it was a ...
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