It pains me to give this book a solitary star because I absolutely adored one Summer in Savannah. I was so impressed with the sensitive and interesting introduction and the premise, that I went into the story with high hopes. This book, however, felt like it was written by a completely different author.

As opposed to the author's debut novel, which was creative and had amazing characters, this book was hugely disappointing. The Solomon family is not only a train wreck, but an exaggerated train wreck; a quartet of selfish, oversexed, immature siblings who are so unlikable, it is difficult to have any compassion for them. They have all made extremely poor life decisions that serve only their most base desires. And, while the subject of "heir property" in Black families is a fascinating one, it was eclipsed by the terrible people at the center of it.

This was an opportunity missed, in my opinion, because the subject is an important one and the story had so much potential. But how can we feel the gravity of the family's predicament if we have no one to root for? The answer is: we can't. By the time the land was in jeopardy, I didn't care if they lost it or not.

I received a free e-arc of this book through Netgalley.
This book focuses on one Black family in the aftermath of their father's death. Their land has been passed down via heir property with no wills since the beginning. A big development company is now coming after their land. The four grown children each have their own views on the land and what should or can be done with it. We get to see the story from each of their POV. This book has some graphic scenes of sexual extortion. I wish I would've liked it more, but most of the siblings weren't very likable in their humanness and what they have done to survive. It touches on some important themes both in American History and how far our country still needs to go to make things better for all.

Thank you NetGalley for an advance copy of this book by an author I so enjoy! This book is my favorite kind of genre..complex family relationships with well crafted, detailed characters and complicated relationships. We meet the family after the passing of The King..the patriach of a large family of 4 siblings.who grew up in a place they lovingly call The Kingdom. Each of the siblings come back to town after his death with their own set of issues and struggles, and each of their stories is so beautifully detailed and interesting. What I also loved was the author's forward, giving readers a "trigger" warning about some of the issues addressed in the book, like eating disorders, etc. The author really wants her readers to have a great experience with these characters. This is a touching, unique family drama that I definitely recommend.

This book was absolutely phenomenal!! I adored the characters, the story, the back and forth. It was romantic, heartbreaking, beautiful! I loved the way the author told this story and the lessons I learned along the way.

"While we are influenced by our parents and the ones who come before us, we are ultimately responsible for the people we become." - Tera Shelton Harris

this was such a beautiful and devastating read. it centers around the responsibilities, weights, and complications that come with family, love, loss, and grief. four siblings try to navigate their personal problems and the consequences of poor choices while dealing the aftermath of their father's passing. each sibling has their own heavy complexities and have to come together after years of not being under the same roof. each sibling goes through a difficult journey of self-realization and acceptance of who they are, while also coming together to break intergenerational trauma.

Ellis was the most well-rounded character in this entire book. he's that sound of reason and anchor for the siblings. i think this book and its characters would have taken a different turn without him. but something he says to CeCe resonated with me in ways i cannot put into words:

"You accept what you've done. You sit with it and in it. You live with it, all the pain, all the hurt, all the guilt. Until it's done with you. Until you are done with it. You survive it."

i loved this book. it is so well-written that i felt like i was watching a movie play out. every character was relatable in so many ways that i couldn't help but feel for them... like i wanted to reach into the pages and hug them or yell at them or help guide them, but despite their flaws... you loved them.

this will be such a great book for book clubs or buddy reading, more so if you read it with a sibling or family member. it will open up so many important conversations. i have no doubts it will be something i will look back to in the future, because it holds so many beautiful and important messages.

thank you to NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to read this book. i received this book as an ARC and leave this review voluntarily.

"Don't let the white man take the house."
They are King's words before he dies, leaving four siblings to fight off a bank claiming they own part of the nearly 200 acres of land in North Carolina. This is not the first book I have read that address heir land ownership this year, it's a hot topic when speaking about African Americans in terms of equity, reparations and our sordid American history. When a person dies without a will, the ownership of land and objects move on to the heirs. This can create a large-scale problem if two brothers, for instance, marry and have children (who have children) creating more and more heirs. It is fairly easy for a large wealthy person/company to seduce one of the heirs into selling their portion which can lead to what can only be compared to as a hostile takeover.

In Long After We Are Gone we watch as siblings scamper to address this takeover of their land following the death of their beloved Patriarch. It's an amazing story on it's own, but Shelton Harris adds 4 incredibly interesting characters for us to follow - There is Junior, the oldest and secretly in love with another man. Mance, who fights his own temper and loses frequently, CeCe, the first daughter who has backed herself into a corner in her work in NYC and Tokey a woman who has succumbed to her own demons and overeats excessively. The four unlikely heroes are brought together and forced to face their childhood, their current obstacles and make peace with each other. I was enthralled by this story and am still thinking about it days after. Shelton Harris has an amazing talent of putting you in the place, and you should grab this book!
#sourcebooks #sourcebookslandmark #longafterwearegone #terahsheltonharris

Long After We Are Gone was such a beautifully written book with deeply flawed characters. I cannot do the book justice by just saying it was good. It was magnificent. But it was also so very, very hard to read. I’m glad there was an Author’s Note that provided trigger warnings. Even though I’m not someone who needs the warnings, parts of the book were still so hard for me to read. I loved how we were able to get the POVs of the 4 siblings. These POVs were necessary to being able to understand why they were the way they were, and why they made the decisions they made. There were difficulties in reading each of siblings’ stories. CeCe was extremely narcissistic and dramatic; Junior was living for others and didn’t love himself; Mance had clear anger issues; and Tokey felt unloved and worthless. Tokey was the hardest character for me to read. I have never read a story of someone who had an eating disorder or was an overeater. I was uncomfortable with the parts where she gorged herself.

In my opinion, the siblings were terrible people who were so deeply flawed and self-centered that they didn't think of anyone but themselves. The only redeemable character in the book was Ellis. Ellis loved the entire Solomon family like is own and was more loyal to their father and the land than any of the siblings.

Overall, the storyline flowed very well, and each sibling got an equal amount of time in the book. I’m glad that there wasn’t a perfect ending, and it ended as it should have.

This novel has a standard theme… father dies, children all come together to continue and contribute. It begins oddly, with a narrator like a Greek play announcing events. I felt it was intrusive. After several chapters the narrator was less present and the story unfolded. Family disfuncti9n and secrets seem to be a popular topic for novelists and perhaps that is why I felt this book was not original. The family is Black and that added to the plot because of the historical interest of their land and home. I cannot recommend it but it was not a bad read.

Thanks to NetGalley, and Sourcebooks Landmark for the opportunity to read Long After We Are Gone by Terah Shelton Harris. What an amazing book this is. And an important one.

Soulful

This was quite the saga, so I took my time with it. I read it in small chunks so that I could savor it. This wasn’t a light read. It required me to sit with my own emotions and failures. The characters were all so damaged, but not broken. That made them feel relatable. By the end of the story, it even made them feel lovable. This was a powerful story of honoring our ancestors and their traditions. It was an emotional look at mending a family that had unraveled.

The writing was excellent. It was so vivid and descriptive. The author did a great job with the character development. She made their flaws feel authentic. She made me want to hug them at times and shake them at other times. I absolutely adored Ellis from beginning to end. He was such a pillar of strength and stability in the midst of so much chaos. Junior grew on me after he learned to love himself. I cheered for him when he finally decided to fight back. By the end of the book, I had become fond of each of the siblings. I was rooting for them and they didn’t disappoint me.

This was such a robust story. It really pulled at my heartstrings. I gave it a four star rating simply because I wanted a better explanation on a few things. The children not having any information on their long lost mother didn’t work for me. The rest of the book was a success. Thank you to NetGalley, Sourcebooks Landmark, and Terah Shelton Harris for this advanced copy to review.

With this book, Terah Harris disproves the "Sophmore slump" publishing theory. One Summer in Savannah was an incredible debut, and Long After We Are Gone is even better. I have not read a book with such complex characters in a long time. This is a story of a family that has been holding each other at arm's length for years through secrets and lies. When the patriarch of the family passes away, the loyalty that the siblings have for him, for the family estate, and for each other pulls them back together again. Terah Harris weaves the thread of each character's backstory into a beautiful pattern. The reader is discovering just how beautiful these relationships are right along with the characters themselves. This is not a story about perfect people, but of a family that has to work at being vulnerable enough with each other that they can heal the fractures in their past. Highly recommend!

Lies, secrets, sex, violence, addiction, and betrayal have estranged the Solomon siblings from each other and the people who love them the most. Each one has to come to terms with the messes they’ve made as they try to reconnect as a family in an attempt to save their legacy. I was a big fan of One Summer in Savannah and am in awe of how easily Harris juggles multiple POVs and creates living, breathing characters that you don’t know whether to hug or shake. The drama in this book chewed up my Kindle battery and kept me up late reading in the dark. Don’t miss it.

Terah does it again! She writes another Southern tale centered on family, faith, and fortune. While reading this book, I couldn't help but think about the show Queen Sugar, where estranged siblings come together to run and keep the family's sugar cane farm. I also thought about the beautiful 93-year-old South Carolina woman whom Tyler Perry helped because developers were harassing her about the land that her home resided. In this book, the Solomon siblings, with their respective life trials, come together to save their family home and land from developers. I loved the multiple POV storytelling because I could learn each life story from each sibling's mouth. Their life stories weren't new phenomena; however, they showed how paths of family members can veer off in several ways but can intersect at various points. I loved that we learned about King, the family patriarch, after he died because the multiple other perspectives of his life made the story more interesting. Generational wealth, especially for black folks, often seems to be an uphill battle, and this book highlighted that. We have to work twice as hard to keep our possessions in the familial line, and that's sad.
The ending may surprise folks, but I saw it as a necessary cleansing and reset. Lastly, can we talk about the gorgeousness of the book title? Just gorgeous!

This was a great book from this author. It resonated with me and the African American community as it tells the story of siblings who all must make a decision about their family home in the wake of death.

Before their father dies he has one wish which is not to "let the white man take the house."
It explores the relationships, secrets and lies of the siblings and makes us realize that everything is not always as it seems.

I think this book would make a great book club pick, it has plenty of opportunity for discussion and meaningful conversations.

Thank you to #netgalley for this #arc

Long After We Are Gone is about the four Solomon siblings who after the death of their father, return to North Carolina to save the Kingdom, their ancestral home and 200 acres of land, from a development company. As they fight to save the Kingdom, each sibling deals with their own secrets and struggles.

After reading Shelton Harris’ debut novel, One Summer in Savannah, I was very excited to read LAWAG and was not disappointed. Told from the alternating viewpoints of the Soloman siblings, each character was fully fleshed out and you feel for each of them. The author’s use of multiple POVs does not slow the book down by any means. I like that Shelton Harris’ plots are unique and well thought out. In addition to the emotional connection the reader forms with the characters, one always learns something new after reading her stories. In this case; the obstacles black families faced post Reconstruction regarding land ownership, something that continues to this day.

There are a few trigger warnings that are mentioned in the Author’s Note section and they include; violence (including murder), homophobia, sexual manipulation and eating disorders. The aforementioned content is handled with the utmost respect and care by the author.

I really loved this book and would absolutely recommend it. Mrs. Shelton Harris is an extremely talented author and I look forward to reading more of her work in the future.

Thank you NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Landmark for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

The Solomon family has lived in Diggs, North Carolina, for generations. The four siblings have gone their separate ways in recent years and barely talk to each other. When King, their father, unexpectedly passes away, the group is brought back together to lay him to rest and deal with a second unexpected challenge – someone’s trying to take their land.

Terah Shelton Harris gives a master class in the pitfalls of heir property in her sophomore novel Long After We Are Gone. Utilizing multiple viewpoints, Harris explores the generational trauma the siblings face along with their own personal choices that bring them closer to losing the family land. Inspired by real events, this book is about the power of honest communication, being proud of who you are, and greed so big it could destroy everything.

I give Long After We Are Gone 5 out of 5 stars. I appreciate the work Harris puts in to sharing the story from multiple points of view. Harris elegantly conveys the pain and frustration each sibling processed throughout the story, allowing background and private conversations to be shared in a natural flow. I connected deeply with these characters and their private struggles – their redemption stories are beautifully written. This book had me experiencing every emotion and plenty of movements of laughter, too!

If you liked Harris’ debut novel One Summer in Savannah, you’ll love this one, too. I would recommend this book to readers wanting to learn more about the plight of heir property families and how this system works – Harris includes descriptions of the legal process that really helped me understand what these cases are like. Given the discussion of sexual relations (consensual and non-consensual), violence, homophobia, and criminal behavior, I would recommend this novel to more mature audiences over 13. Even the author includes a trigger warning in the Author’s Note about these subjects.

A few months back, I met Terah Shelton Harris at an author event and book signing for One Summer in Savannah at the Atlanta History Center. I was struck by how sensitively she handled discussing traumatizing subjects like rape in both her writing and the speaking event. Towards the end of that event, she mentioned this book would be upcoming and discussed a bit of the subject matter – I was immediately hooked! When I saw it was available for advanced review through Netgalley, I jumped at the chance to participate. I am hooked on Harri’s writing style and subject choices and can’t wait to see what her third book will be!

Long After We Are Gone will release on May 14th. You can preorder your copy now!

This was a quick read. I did not like it. The summary of the book tells the whole story. That's it. There is nothing else to it. And, Ellis is the only character I liked.

Great book about four siblings and their fight to keep their ancestral land. I was a little worried at first with the many different viewpoints, but it ended up working really well getting to know each sibling and their secrets.
If you liked the author’s first book One Summer in Savannah, this one will not disappoint.

Thank you Netgalley for my ARC♥️

As I delved into Terah Shelton Harris's sophomore novel, I felt like I was sitting at the kitchen table with the four siblings, sipping sweet tea and bearing witness to their raw, honest conversations. The family's secrets and scars are laid bare, and I couldn't help but reflect on my own family's stories and silences. Can these siblings find the courage to confront the past and save their family land? Harris's writing is like a warm embrace, enveloping me in the joys and sorrows of this flawed, lovable family. I laughed, cried, and nodded my head in recognition as they struggled to reconcile their truths. This book is a reminder that our families are messy, beautiful tapestries of love and imperfection - and that's what makes them so precious.

Beautifully written book about the importance of family and proper communication. Four siblings, trying to find peace and acceptance. Loved all the characters and the storyline. Everyone has their own struggles and grief. Intense and emotional story. Families are our grestest strength, it shows in the book.