The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd “Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love.” “This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women” “This is a flat-out masterpiece. Kidd has always written beautifully about the power of relationships between women (Secret Life of Bees) and in this book she does so again, set against the realities of slavery in the early 1800s. She focuses on fractious and loving mother-daughter relationships as well as how women grow in wisdom as well as years. The writing is perfect in every respect. This one deserves to become a classic.”
