In this latest from Coster, author of the beloved Halsey Street, the integration of a North Carolina community brings together a gentle young Black boy named Gee, whose mother is determined to see him move forward, and sparkly Noelle, compelled by her mother to deny that she is half-Latina. The uneasy waltz of these two families captures larger tensions within the community. With a 25,000-copy first printing.

Set in an unnamed town in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, this work repeats some characteristics and themes of Coster's successful debut novel, Halsey Street. Neither book has a strictly linear narrative, and both stories span several decades, with the narrative shared among several characters. Here, the stories are split between two families whose lives intersect dramatically when the county school system decides to integrate a predominantly white school. The repercussions of this action reverberate for both families as they encounter obstacles and are beset by tragedies. Each family is led by a strong woman struggling to protect her children, and even as the two women face off on opposite sides of the integration debate, their children—Gee, a sensitive young Black man, and Noelle, a headstrong young woman—are drawn together and thus draw together their families. VERDICT Deploying multiple voices does diminish the depth of character development, but Coster's cast of characters is unique, creating a tapestry that allows the various individuals to explore a past they may try to escape but can't leave behind completely. Despite its sprawling time line and multiple perspectives, the novel remains an intimate portrait of families shaped by love, motherhood, race, and class.—Faye Chadwell, Oregon State Univ., Corvallis

Coster (Halsey Street) returns with a rich if diffuse story of loss, betrayal, and systemic racism, centered on two families spanning the 1990s to the present, set mainly in the Piedmont area of North Carolina. In 1992, six-year-old Gee's, father, Ray, gets killed in front of him. Noelle Ventura grows up on the other side of town, and though her father, Robbie, is from Colombia, she passes for white. In 2002, the two families intersect when Gee, who is Black, is bussed to Noelle's high school. Her white mother, Lacey May, who struggled to support three children while Robbie was in jail, joins a group of parents who protest the school's integration, a racist position that forces Noelle to choose between Lacey May and her growing love for Gee. In a series of abrupt shifts, Coster portrays Noelle as a housewife in 2018 Atlanta, and her Black husband, Nelson, who works as a photographer in 2018 Paris and sleeps with a white woman. In 2018, Lacey May's daughters reluctantly return home to visit after hearing she has cancer, setting off a series of confrontations and reconciliations. While Coster's exploration of race is powerful, the scattered plotting dampens the impact of the various stories. It's undoubtedly ambitious, but it doesn't hang together. Agent: Keene Benton, Kristyn, ICM Partners. (Mar.)