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Content snapshot
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Violence
A lot
Graphic racial violence including beatings, lynching threats, and murder; the violence of Reconstruction-era racial terror is depicted honestly
Language
Barely any
Racial slurs used extensively as historical language by white characters
Sexual Content
Barely any
Brief references to sexuality in the context of slavery and mixed-race identity
Substance Use
Barely any
Social drinking
Emotional Intensity
A lot
The psychological burden of racial identity as a mixed-race person; racial hatred; the murder of people Paul-Edward loves
What this book is about
Set in the 1870s-1880s, this prequel to Roll of Thunder traces Paul-Edward Logan, the mixed-race son of a white landowner and an enslaved woman. After the Civil War, Paul-Edward fights to own his own land — navigating the violence, betrayal, and racial hatred of Reconstruction-era Mississippi. Taylor's Coretta Scott King Award winner is her most brutal novel, as honest about racial violence as anything in her series.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Graphic racial violence
Racial slurs throughout
Lynching threats and murder
Brutal depiction of Reconstruction-era racism
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