A thrilling new novel by Victoria Saccenti set in North Carolina in 1968 – a time where interracial relationships were forbidden – unthinkable!
Preorder Noémie’s Journey now.
Love is waiting around the next curve…but trouble is never far behind.
Desperate to shake memories that stalk him like feral beasts, Richard Winters points his motorcycle toward the highway and twists the throttle—destination anywhere but New York. By the time he puts his kickstand down, he’s in Summitville, North Carolina, where, with a few annoying exceptions, one being an outlaw MC, he’s left alone.
Except there’s one woman who catches his notice and resurrects the protective instinct that cost him everything once before. A woman with stunning green eyes that haunt his dreams, and facing prejudice that makes him want to rise to her defense. But that would mean doing the last thing he wants to do—lower his guard.
Noémie Bellerose has heard times are changing, but in 1968 North Carolina, she and her younger brother are second-class citizens. The new bartender in town is temptation on two wheels, but in what world could the two of them connect? Not this one.
Despite their best intentions to avoid trouble, trouble finds them both—and so does an attraction that won’t be denied. But can love bloom where it is planted, or will they be forced to resort to desperate measures…before hate cuts them down?
Readers Favourite 5* review.
‘When Richard Winters points his Harley away from New York and heads south, looking for peace and a release from the memories of a devastating love affair, he wants nothing more than solitude and an opportunity to find himself again. The small town of Summitville in North Carolina where nobody knows him seems a great place to start again. What he doesn’t count on, though, is meeting the beautiful and desirable young Creole woman by the name of Noémie, whose desirability he must fight if he truly is to fulfill his promise to himself of no romantic entanglements. Set in the mid-sixties, against the background of the Civil Rights Movement, Noémie’s Journey by Victoria Saccenti explores the reality of life for a beautiful coloured woman in the South. Laws may have changed, but attitudes will take generations to change. Richard, a Yankee from up north, has no perception of what an interracial relationship will entail in North Carolina in the sixties, but Noémie knows well the ingrained racism of her fellow residents that she deals with every single day of her life.
Noémie’s Journey serves to remind us just how far we have come in the forty years in race relations, but equally it also makes us examine our feelings toward people who are different to us, today a touchstone for American society as much now as it ever has been. Author Victoria Saccenti does a superb job of highlighting the institutional and deep racism that was just below the surface of civil society, especially in the South, in those turbulent years of the mid to late sixties. At its heart this book is a love story and a beautiful one at that. I particularly loved the author’s ability to convey the depth of love and the power of their passion in her words without ever having to resort to crudity or erotica. As a reader, I felt the build-up of sexual tension and reveled in the “when will they”, just as much as the participants. This is a real fillip to the author and it is what makes this book so very readable and one of the best of its genre. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can highly recommend it to all readers who like a true romance, but also enjoy a bit of action and thoughtful social comment.’
