Bend, Don't Break: A Novel

IPPY Gold Medal Winner for Historical Fiction • Eric Hoffer Book Award for Historical Fiction Winner • Shortlisted for the Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize • Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist

“This story is fascinating...Each character is artfully developed through riveting storytelling. The entire palette becomes breathtaking.”—Eric Hoffer Book Award Judges' Commentary

“An absorbing, thought-provoking, emotionally engaging, and deftly scripted multi-generational historical novel.”–Midwest Book Review

“Brown has crafted a novel that does not just recount history—it breathes life into it.”—Seattle Book Review

Timely and unforgettable, Bend, Don't Break spans two centuries of American history and is a captivating testament to women's ambition and the unbreakable bond between Black mothers and their daughters. Voiced by Earphones Award–winning narrator A'rese Emokpae.

Drawing strength from their ancestor, Aisha, a slave born free on the west coast of Africa, four Black women will do whatever is necessary to succeed—and will do even more to protect their daughters. Aisha's granddaughter, Dinah, a plantation slave, fends off the advances of the master's son and vows to prevent the same mistreatment of her daughter, Sarah. During the Harlem Renaissance, Augusta, an aspiring teacher, falls in love for the first time. Her mother, Julia, is determined to prevent her from getting hurt. Attorney Olivia and her news producer daughter, Nicole, both seek success and equality in the white man's world of 1980s corporate life. And in the present day, Sha, a tech company chief information officer, turns amateur detective after her daughter's assault.

Throughout the generations, these women encounter similar challenges but face them in different ways and survive and thrive through all of it, because they bend but do not break. They demonstrate that although generational trauma can be passed down like an inheritance, so, too, can healing and resilience.