The Mothers

Brit Bennett's captivating first book, set in a modern black town in Southern California, is an emotionally insightful tale of ambition, love, and community. Let's start with a secret.

"All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we'd taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season."

Nadia Turner, a beautiful seventeen-year-old who is defiant and grieving, is in her last year of high school. She starts seeing the son of the local preacher while lamenting the recent suicide of her own mother. Twenty-one-year-old Luke Sheppard was once a football star, but an accident has left him serving tables at a cafe. It's not serious; they're still young. However, the consequences of the pregnancy that arises from this teenage romance—as well as the following cover-up—will extend far beyond their teenage years. The years pass fast as Nadia keeps her secret from everyone, including her closest friend Aubrey, who believes in God. In due course, Nadia, Luke, and Aubrey become fully grown adults, but they are still burdened by the decisions they made that summer by the sea. They are also entangled in a romantic triangle that requires careful manoeuvring, and they are plagued by the unceasing, unsettling thought, "What if?" The options of choosing a different path are a constant source of fear.

The Mothers explores the question of whether a "what if" might have more impact than the actual event in captivating, poetic writing. If the choices we make that permanently alter our life, the communities that have raised us, and our younger selves must always be the masters of us as time goes on.