Recommendations from our site
“James’ The Book of Night Women was an easy choice for this list because of its incredibly powerful narrative voice. Its narrator recounts the story of Lilith, born enslaved on the Montpelier Estate in Jamaica in the late 18th century. While Lilith’s suffering and resilience under slavery are innately compelling, what strikes the reader almost as much is the stunning language used to describe them.” Read more...
Historical Novels Set In the 1700s
Francesca de Tores, Novelist
“This is Marlon James’ second novel, and it’s set on a Jamaican sugar plantation. It tells the story of Lilith, who is born into slavery and orphaned at birth by her 13-year-old mother. She’s one of the many slave girls raped by the white masters so she is, unsurprisingly, forced to grow up very fast and begins to push at the edges of what is imaginable for the life of a slave woman. It’s not an easy read, but it is an incredible story. … The novel is not just about Lilith, it’s about six half sisters—or ‘night women’—who are all the product of rape and who form a clandestine sisterhood to formulate the overthrow of their white oppressors.” Read more...
The Best Historical Crime Novels
Anna Mazzola, Novelist
