Awards

• Long-listed for Aspen Words Literary Prize 2026

Overview

1690s, Tidewater, Virginia. Bless, born into slavery and taken by her masters to toil in the house, faces her mother's fury, learning that cruelty can come from any side. David, an enslaved child of a freed father, dreams of the promise of liberty made to him. Jack, an impoverished Scots-Irish boy, sails to America to be indentured but, in the hellish crossing, finds his hopes fracturing. Yet, somehow, they all will stake a claim to love. Hurston-Wright Award winner Princess Joy L. Perry tells us a previously unheard story-one in which characters must carve out choices from the narrowest of circumstances and confront heartrending questions: How far would you go to protect your children from enslavement? How to create a lasting family after being torn from your own? What to value more: a hard-won opportunity or your humanity? This Here Is Love is an unforgettable story from an astonishing new voice.

Full Product Details

9781324105978

Table of Contents

Reviews

""If there is comfort in chronicling the first century of the American Slavery project, it’s that it is written by one of its daughters. In This Here is Love, Princess Joy L. Perry refuses to shy away from the cruelties of surviving the realities of 17th century America and has charted the terrible truths of her character’s impossible choices—even as they map a journey towards their own freedom, their futures, their shared humanity. In these pages, we have love rooted and rebuilt in the land that stripped these compelling characters of almost all they have, and a blueprint for how hope may still move us forward."" -- DéLana R.A. Dameron, author of Redwood Court, a Reese's Book Club Selection ""This Here is Love is an utterly riveting intergenerational saga of love, betrayal, theft and resilience. Princess Joy L. Perry laces every chapter with fireworks and unforgettable characters—all off-kilter, wounded and searching for solace in this epic tale of slavery and freedom."" -- Lawrence Hill, author of Someone Knows My Name, winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize ""In the manner of Edward P. Jones's The Known World, this sweeping and great-hearted novel presents a cast of unforgettable characters driven by their hopes and yearnings, men and women who in the face of the suffering and loss and violence of bondage manage to go about the ‘brave business of love.’ This is a beautiful book."" -- Janet Peery, National Book Award Finalist for The River Beyond the World

Searing... Perry's intersecting plots are gripping, but what's more impressive is the way she guides us through her characters' emotional depths.--Alida Becker ""New York Times Book Review"" [A] commanding debut novel... These characters shine in their courage and resistance, creating families and communities that enabled them to endure.--The Center for Fiction Epic... Meticulous research into the time period down to the clothing, the food, the landscape, and the lifestyle create a believably vivid setting.--Lillian Dabney ""Booklist"" It's hard to believe that this is Perry's first novel, so effectively does it pull readers deep into the lives of its evolving, powerful, multifaceted characters... Readers who enjoy the work of either [Zora Neale] Hurston or [Richard] Wright will love this novel.--Laura Ellis, Library Journal, starred review Remarkable... A marvelous tale about the limits of freedom.--Publishers Weekly, starred review In the tenderest of prose and the most compelling of storytelling, Princess Joy L. Perry has reached back centuries to our earliest national moments, writing of the confusion that occurs when power crosses love--but oh, how that love can survive! A love at the beginning and at the end. A love which is the sweetest human wisdom, the most merciful of legacies.--Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois A luscious storyteller, Perry brings to light the profound moral and emotional dilemmas her characters face, making the reader feel the weight of their impossible choices and everyday courage. A fierce and luminous debut.--Sheri Reynolds, author of The Rapture of Canaan and The Tender Grave In the manner of Edward P. Jones's The Known World, this sweeping and greathearted novel presents a cast of unforgettable characters driven by their hopes and yearnings, men and women who in the face of the suffering and loss and violence of bondage manage to go about the 'brave business of love.' This is a beautiful book.--Janet Peery, National Book Award finalist for The River Beyond the World This Here is Love is an utterly riveting intergenerational saga of love, betrayal, theft, and resilience. Princess Joy L. Perry laces every chapter with fireworks and unforgettable characters--all off-kilter, wounded, and searching for solace in this epic tale of slavery and freedom.--Lawrence Hill, author of Someone Knows My Name, winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize In This Here Is Love, Princess Joy L. Perry refuses to shy away from the cruelties of surviving the realities of seventeenth-century America and has charted the terrible truths of her characters' impossible choices--even as they map a journey toward their own freedom, their futures, their shared humanity. In these pages, we have love rooted and rebuilt in the land that stripped these compelling characters of almost all they have, and a blueprint for how hope may still move us forward.--DéLana R. A. Dameron, author of Redwood Court, a Reese's Book Club Selection

Author Information

Princess Joy L. Perry is the recipient of a Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship and a winner of the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award. Her short stories have appeared in All About Skin, African American Review, and Kweli Journal. She lives in Norfolk, Virginia.

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