I quite enjoyed the author's previous book, Take My Hand, so I was excited to get my hands on this one.

The topic of this book is one that needs to be told and it was written in an interesting way. We are given 2 POV's with time periods in the 1800's and current. Both black women of the same family. The main point of the book is surrounding black owned land, how it was acquired and how it was stolen from them through "legal" means. I've known of this aspect of history, so it wasn't new to me, but I appreciated a deeper dive into how it was handled. With that we are given emotions as we follow these strong women and the unfairness of the position they are placed in. I love that the women were the focus rather than men.

While I loved this subject, I found that the story dragged. At about the half way point I was needing the plot to pick up or become more complicated to keep me invested. While it did a little bit, I still felt that I had to push myself to finish.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for the gifted e-copy of this book.

A tale of family, land ownership, and freedom. Learning the history of this intentional community shows the perseverance of a people. The love and heartbreak we can feel within our families is shown throughout this book. It gives hope through history.

This is another great story told by the author of Take My Hand. Another historical fiction tale that had me completely engaged. The author's skilled writing made me feel that I was right there with her characters. Bravo!

Another winner from Dolan Perkins-Valdez. A beautiful mix of historical fiction in a place in the USA I had never heard tales like this of, and the power of family and the history families share was a wonderful bonus to her words. A powerful celebration of the success some former enslaved men and women worked for and triumphed with. A moving novel.

I love a great historical fiction book, especially when I learn a piece of history that I knew nothing about, especially with US history.

This story is told in alternating sections, one is current time with Nikki, as she heads to see her Grandmother, Mother Rita, who she has not seen in many years. Mother Rita has reached out to Nikki as she needs help with something but once Nikki gets there, Mother is not immediately forthcoming with what she needs help with. Nikki pieces things together during her visit & it has to do with multi generational history.

The other section of the story is told from the POV of Luella, a young woman during the Reconstruction era. Her family is now free & a group of them move on to land near the SC/NC border & they form their own "kingdom" called Happy Land.

The old history & new part of the story merge together over time.

There's current family turmoil- 4 generations of women, Mother Rita, her daughter who is Nikki's mom, Nikki & Nikki's daughter. Nikki's mom has never believed the story that has been passed down over generations about this kingdom with a King & Queen, called Happy Land. This causes a rift over many years & Nikki works to find the truth.

A great piece of history that I am sure many of us never heard of before.

Thank you Dolen Perkins-Valdez for researching this & writing this wonderful novel.

This book shook me.

I received a digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Happy Land is a novel about a Black woman who is estranged from her roots and while on a trip to visit her grandmother, the first in her life, she discovers that she is descended from royalty. A royal kingdom set up right in the heart of Appalachia, a kingdom of freed men and women. Should she, Nikki, believe all this or are they simply stories passed down and exaggerated with time? This novel is told in dual POV and dual timelines. We get Nikki a forty-year old single mother who is trying to balance career and family, and Luella, the young woman who was the queen of Happy Land, the kingdom of freed peoples. The two voices are very distinct and Perkins-Valdez uses that to her benefit.

While some aspects of this novel hit a little too close to home, there are so many wonderful things about it as well. Nikki is out of touch with her roots, her culture. Because of this, she doesn’t have high aspirations, just like her mother didn’t, just like her daughter doesn’t. Because she has no idea of her proud history, she can’t see the possibilities that life has for her. Nikki just thought she came from a line of only daughters, ones who live simple lives, get married and work. Yet when she goes to visit her grandmother, Mother Rita, all that changes. Understandably, Nikki is skeptical at first, a kingdom of freedmen? There weren’t no kingdoms in the US, and definitely none like that. At least that is what she has always believed, and what everyone seems to believe.

This novel touches on a lot of things, things that may make you need a break from it. I know that I did. For example, the lack of archiving of Black histories and families, land stolen time and time again from Black and brown people, lost hope, motherhood, dealing with family drama. And if any of that is triggering for you, please be warned.

To really talk about this book, I have to go deep. I have to get personal, because it isn’t a novel that you stay distanced from. It is one that pulls you in close and holds you there. As a Black woman I can say without a doubt that many matriarchs and patriarchs have gone on without sharing their story, without the younger generations knowing who they are, who the family is, why certain things are done, why other things are not. The author, Dolen Perkins-Valdez touches on all of this. We get the distinct sense that there is something missing, a puzzle piece thrown away to leave the puzzle forever unfinished. And that hits close to home. But we as readers also see what it is like to be a bridge, which is what Nikki acts as connecting her past and her present, her mother and her grandmother. While I don’t think that is a spoiler, this next bit may be.

SPOILER ALERT: We come to grips with the fact that while we may never know all or even understand it, family is integral. Nikki’s family was barely there because her mother Lorelle refused to listen to Mother Rita’s talks about Happy Land, wealthy Black landowners seemed like a pipe dream, a fantasy to her, and so she ignored it, moved, and cut ties with her mother. It’s only when Lorelle realizes that time is of the essence that she begins to open her mind to the idea that Happy Land and all of Mother Rita’s stories have truth to them.

While I favored Luella’s POV over Nikki’s, both are essential and give us a lot of information that propel us on in the story. And I am not ashamed to say that this novel did bring a tear or two, dealing with family and lost legacies is something I believe all African-descendants of enslaved people understand, there will always be something we don’t know. Yet that doesn’t mean we should continue to hush the narrative or keep silent. We should continue to strive for more and maybe, as Nikki did, do some digging into the lives of our families. Who knows what we may excavate?

At the end of the day, I am glad that I received this ARC and this is definitely a book that will stick with me for a good while, one that I will mull over and consider. It is definitely one that I would recommend to fellow readers, as well. It gave me some things to think about and reminded me of the importance of oral histories, storytelling, and understanding where you come from.

I was lucky enough to win a copy of HAPPY LAND by Dolen Perkins-Valdez in a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you for the early look, and have a safe holiday season!

Perkins-Valdez's newest book, Happy Land, reveals a how a community of freed slaves moved away from the developing KKK threat to build a safe community protected with their own governance. This unique commune was known as a "kingdom" (modeled after African communities) and remarkably, they gained the freedom of land ownership.

This little known chapter of Black history is presented in an appealing dual timeline. We are first introduced to the group of brave and hardworking individuals who establish the kingdom in the 1870's. Then, a modern account traces the decedents of the Kingdom of Happy Land founders. It was fascinating to connect the dots of the multiple generations.

The only bump in the road I encountered was in the second half of the book. A perplexing plot line develops between two characters in the Kingdom of Happy Land. This felt like a diversion that only delayed learning of the social, legal and technological events that threatened the kingdom. The story finally gets recentered and arrives at a realistic and satisfactory conclusion.

I strongly recommend Happy Land to historic fiction and literary fiction readers. Through the lively and sympathetic characters Perkins-Valdez lovingly puts together, I learned about so much more about Reconstruction era history.

Thank you BookBrowse for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Happy Land introduced me to a part of American History of which I was never even aware—when former slaves relocated from South Carolina to North Carolina and created their own kingdom.

The author alternated between the present day and the early years of Happy Land, and I thoroughly enjoyed both interlaced stories. One of the essential themes was love of the land and appreciation for the earth’s bounty and its benefits. As we read stories of courageous and hardworking people, we are also reminded of the glory of nature.

The author writes well and with an authentic and natural voice. The book will be well-received by book groups. Individuals who know little about the kingdom (as it was called) will be fascinated.

Huge thanks to Bookbrowse & NetGalley for the opportunity to read this (arc) book.
Publication date is April 8, 2025
my Review: It is amazing how little we know of the history of certain people & places. I never knew there was a 'Kingdom of Happy Land" up in the North Carolina mountains with an honest to goodness King & Queen.
This story is about resilience & family & everything people can and will do for freedom & love. I particularly enjoyed the back story of the Kingdom, how it came to be, what the people had to endure, how they came together for each other, cooking, helping, loving. This story is about family, particularly mothers & daughters. What it takes to survive, how we sometimes have to understand that we don't always want the same things, how to respect our differences while still holding onto our history.
I really loved this story!
#Netgalley
#Bookbrowse

I loved the characters and story in this book. The Civil War is over. The KKK is rampant. A group of freed people trek to Appalachia. Their's is a communal village based on the laws and leadership of the African homeland they were forced to leave. They called it Kingdom Happy Land. They worked hard. Thery prospered. They bought land. They lost the land. It was a male dominated society until little by little it wasn't

The story is told by Luella, an original setter (1875) and her great granddaughter Rita (the present) who retells the story to her own granddaughter ,.Nikki. Nikki is surprised and amazed at the history of her family and works to undo the wrongs.

Even readers who are not historical fiction buffs will enjoy this book. And perhaps while being entertained we will all take a minute to reflect how the past affects our present.

Reader Review of “Happy Land” by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Submitted by Anne Crotty, arrcrotty@aol.com

The author of this new book mentions in her acknowledgments that she is a fan of historical fiction. That is probably true of a lot of readers, including myself. There is something magical in learning about a true event, a place, or a group of people, and then reading this new information set in a compelling fiction story with vivid characters to bring it all to life.

The framework of the novel shifts between a group of freed slaves in the antebellum south and their descendants in the present day. The hardships and prejudices endured by the settlers of The Kingdom of the Happy Land are vividly described. The modern characters are portrayed as a family in crisis, with many old grudges and misunderstandings to solve.

The author keeps the interest level high between chapters, as the reader comes to care deeply about the people in both eras. The outcomes are revealed at last, in satisfying conclusions for all.

This is a book I plan to recommend to my neighborhood book club.

Thank you to Book Browse, Berkley Books and NetGalley for an advance readers copy of this book.

Based on a true story, Happy Land is a saga of strength, struggle, survival and success.

In the 1870’s, after emancipation, Black citizens in South Carolina find themselves persecuted by the Klan. Many of them leave together, heading for the mountains of North Carolina, to establish themselves on mountain land where the community flourishes. However, while physically less vulnerable, they still must deal with economic and legal abuse, whose consequences continue to appear in the present.

Starting there, with the most recent descendants of this group, Happy Land returns to tell the 1870’s saga of the family who led the move to their new life, and the ensuing efforts to grow and save the land they make their “kingdom.”

While the charismatic leader, William, originally led the way, it is the women in the family who persevere and who tell the story: Nikki, in the present, and Luella, 150 years before, at the Kingdom’s beginning. In the first person, each woman speaks with a distinct voice, yet their conversational styles give well-defined voices to a variety of family members and neighbors.

The story is engrossing, the writing engaging, and the dialog draws the reader in so thoroughly, it takes a moment to return to one’s own world. This would make an excellent book group choice.

Interesting historical fiction. I liked the historical sections better than the modern one. The family rift seemed a bit contrived. I also felt like it was similar to Practical Magic which many new books this year have been.

Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez is a beautifully written and deeply moving story. The characters are well-developed, and the historical backdrop really adds layers of depth to the narrative. It’s one of those books that pulls you in from the very first page and makes you think long after you’ve finished. The storytelling is vivid and heartfelt, addressing complex themes in a way that feels both real and impactful. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a powerful, thought-provoking read!