A Most Anticipated Book for 2026 according to the New York Times New Statesman NPR
Guardian Independent Financial Times Daily Express Mirror Scotsman Vulture TIME
and USA Today 'Smart and funny and deftly profound. This is Tayari Jones's very best work.'
Ann Patchett author of Tom Lake A yearning for their missing mothers pulls Vernice and
Annie apart. It will take a devastating tragedy to bring them back together in the
spellbinding new novel from award-winning author Tayari Jones Vernice and Annie are 'cradle
friends' born days apart in Honeysuckle Louisiana both destined never to know their mothers.
The girls are inseparable bound by a friendship far deeper than sisterhood. But this is the
American south in the 1950s. Black girls like Vernice and Annie have to fight for every
opportunity they can and neither one can build the future they hope for in Honeysuckle.
Gradually inevitably the girls drift apart. Vernice pursues her education Annie is lured by
the promise of a heady first love affair and a growing obsession with finding her mother. But
her search pulls her even further into a world of danger that soon leaves her oldest friend
battling to save her. Tayari Jones returns with an exuberant richly told story about
mothers daughters and a lifelong friendship that is as dangerous as it is unbreakable.
