No gift is without its consequences…
We are pleased to announce the acquisition of two new books from Hurston/Wright Legacy Award winning author Rita Woods, beginning with The Last Dreamwalker. The Last Dreamwalker will be released in Fall 2022 from Forge Books.
After her mother’s unexpected death, Layla Hurley must accept that their relationship was always distant and fraught. In the wake of her passing, Layla reconnects with the maternal side of her family—aunts she hasn’t been allowed to visit or speak to for years, and stories she’s never heard. She travels to South Carolina in search of closure, but discovers much more than she bargained for. While her mother harbored dark and disturbing secrets, there is also talk of her inheritance: a piece of land on the Gullah-Geechee island off the shore is now her own.
But Layla inherits more than land. A long-buried mysterious power, dropped through generations of her Gullah ancestors, awakens. Like many women before her, Layla is a dreamwalker. She can inhabit and manipulate the dreams of others. As she dives into dark memories of her mother and the history of the island, she’s desperate to hold onto what’s real and untangle it from the looming dread that someone else, someone cloaked in malice, inhabits these dreams too.
No gift is without its consequences, and Layla finds herself thrust in the middle of a nightmare against an enemy that could snatch away her family and her life as she knows it.
Author Rita Woods:
Since I was first introduced to the Gullah years ago, while in Charleston on a business trip, I have been intrigued by the idea of a people and a culture that is both part of and outside of ‘mainstream’ culture. South Carolina is a beautiful state, but like so many things that appear beautiful on the surface, there is a darker underbelly, secrets that are kept hidden. This is true of people and places and families, and The Last Dreamwalker came to me as the intersection of both generational and historical secrets and the havoc those secrets can wreak.
From editor Lindsey Hall:
Rita’s writing is absolutely transporting, and in The Last Dreamwalker, we get to follow a family of incredible Black women through centuries and across generations, and we’re introduced to a magical and dangerous world of dreams and nightmares. When I finished the book, I wanted to immediately go back to page one and experience it all again. I’m so excited for you to meet these characters and get to create and walk among dreams alongside them.
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Rita Woods is a family doctor and the director of a wellness center. When she’s not busy working or writing Dr. Woods spends time with her family or at the Homer Glen library where she served on the board for ten years. Remembrance is her first novel.
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Remembrance
