How well do we know our neighbors? How well do we even know our own family? Laura Carter loves her husband, Cam, and although she knows his father Monroe is a hard, racist man, she treats her father-in-law with respect. Laura accepts the fact that Cam, an accountant, has to help his father with his farm, and she does not object when Cam goes out at at night to assist his dad. Laura believes that she and Cam are a team, and that together they can weather any storm.
Laura’s belief is put to the test in more ways than she could have imagined. Laura has always known that she was adopted. At her birthmother’s request, it was a closed adoption–Laura has never know anything about her birth family. As The Color of My Heart opens, Laura’s birthmother, Nelda Brinson, is dying and Nelda’s grandmother makes the fateful decision to contact Laura. Nelda and her Me-Maw live so close by that Laura can visit them, and in doing so she finds out that her mother and her people are African Americans. As Laura, Cam, and their daughters are adjusting to that fact and getting to know their new family, their older daughter Larkin becomes pregnant. The baby’s father is her long-term boyfriend, a boy whose father is a good friend of Cam’s father and who shares his racist views. Sarah Martin Byrd weaves these three strands together in multi-generational story that contains history, horror, cruelty, compassion, and uplift.
Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.
