History

In Happy Land, Dolen Perkins-Valdez uncovers a remarkable chapter of African American history through the story of a family whose identity is deeply rooted in the legacy of a forgotten kingdom. Nikki Berry has been estranged from her grandmother, Mother Rita, for years. When her grandmother unexpectedly summons her to the mountains of western North Carolina, Nikki hopes to understand the family conflict that has separated generations. Instead, she discovers a story that transforms her understanding of her ancestry: her great-great-great-grandmother, Luella, was the queen of the Kingdom of the Happy Land, a real community established by formerly enslaved people after the American Civil War. As Nikki learns more about the kingdom and the lives of those who built it, she discovers how her ancestors created a place of independence and belonging in a society that continued to deny Black Americans equality. But the family’s connection to the land faces a new threat when outside interests seek to take it away. Nikki must confront both the secrets that have shaped her family and the responsibility of protecting its inheritance. Moving between Nikki’s present-day struggles and Luella’s nineteenth-century experiences, Perkins-Valdez weaves together two generations of women whose lives are shaped by the pursuit of freedom, dignity, and self-determination. The novel explores the importance of ancestral memory, the lasting consequences of racial injustice, and the deep connection between land and identity. Inspired by the historical Kingdom of the Happy Land, the novel celebrates the courage of people who dared to imagine a different future and asks what it means to preserve a legacy for generations to come.

What if everything we believed about the origins of civilisation was wrong? Professor Ember Agni is an ambitious archaeologist whose career has stalled and whose marriage is quietly falling apart. For years, she has pursued evidence of a lost civilisation that the academic world refuses to acknowledge. Just as she begins to abandon her quest, a message arrives from a former student overseas: he may have discovered an extraordinary artefact that could rewrite humanity’s history. Determined to uncover the truth, Ember risks her reputation and personal life to embark on an expedition into a remote wilderness. But the deeper she ventures into the past, the more complicated her discoveries become. The civilisation she seeks may hold secrets that challenge not only established history, but also the beliefs on which her own world is built. Blending archaeological mystery, speculative fiction, and adventure, Ruins explores how societies construct their histories—and what happens when the stories we inherit begin to crumble. As Ember searches for the remnants of a forgotten world, she must confront the ruins of her own life and decide what truths are worth sacrificing everything to uncover.