INVENTION OF WINGS

A companion to The Secret Life of Bees code 93129 comes an extraordinary novel about two exceptional women. Sarah Grimké is the middle daughter. The one her mother calls difficult and her father calls remarkable. On her 11th birthday, Hetty 'Handful' Grimké is taken from the slave quarters she shares with her mother, wrapped in lavender ribbons, and presented to Sarah as a gift. Sarah knows what she does next will unleash a world of trouble. She also knows that she cannot accept and so the trouble begins. Like her beloved mother Charlotte, Handful knows the rules, in all their brutality, but no one can stop her pushing them to the limit. She is ten years old when presented to Sarah as her birthday present and then the sparks begin to fly. Enthralling, shocking, sometimes humorous, this powerful and sweeping novel is inspired by real events set in the American Deep South in the 19th century, a novel of contrasts, beauty and ugliness, of righteous people living daily with the cruelty they fail to recognise and a story of two girls who grow up never doing anything they are told. It?s a celebration of the power of friendship. 437pp, paperback.