Author Event: Dolen Perkins-Valdez | HAPPY LAND

Bards Alley will be hosting author Dolen Perkins-Valdez (Take My Hand) to discuss her newest novel Happy Land with Badass Women's Book Club founder Gina Warner. We will begin with a discussion between our host and conversation partner before opening it up to audience Q&A.

Books will be available for purchase during the event, and Dolen will be signing copies after her discussion.

The event will take place at Bards Alley Bookshop on Wednesday, May 14th at 6:00pm and is free to attend with RSVP.

About HAPPY LAND: A woman learns the incredible story of a real-life American Kingdom—and her family’s ties to it—in this enthralling novel from the New York Times bestselling, NAACP Image Award-winning author of Take My Hand.

Nikki hasn’t seen her grandmother in years, due to a mysterious estrangement inherited from her mother. So when the elder calls out of the blue with an urgent request for Nikki to visit her in the hills of western North Carolina, Nikki hesitates only for a moment. After years of silence in her family, she’s determined to learn the truth while she still can.

But instead of answers about the recent past, Mother Rita tells Nikki an incredible story of a kingdom on this very mountain, and of her great-great-great grandmother, Luella, who would become its queen.

It sounds like the makings of a fairy tale—royalty among a community of freed people. But the more Nikki learns about the Kingdom of the Happy Land, and the lives of those who dwelled in the ruins she discovers in the woods, the more she realizes how much of her identity and her family’s secrets are wrapped up in these hills. Because this land is their legacy, and it will be up to her to protect it before it, like so much else, is stolen away.

Host or Publisher Bards Alley Bookshop