“Through journal entries and letters, Cora invites us into not only her kitchen but also into her intense inner life, torn between her obligations as a wife, mother, and librarian and her urge to cook up her own stories. Though her friend Langston Hughes urges her to follow her passions, Cora’s commitment to write is challenged daily by life’s circumstances, only to find a surprising new source of encouragement. As 1928 unfolds, Cora’s Kitchen delves deeply into what it means to be a Black woman with ambition, to make choices and keep secrets, and to have an unexpected alliance with a white woman that ultimately may save both of them. In this intimate and expansive novel, Kim Garrett Brown renders Cora with immense empathy, acknowledging and confronting Cora’s own prejudices and allegiances and the social pressures that continue to reverberate far beyond this story. Cora’s Kitchen is a poignant, compelling story in which misfortune and fortune cannot be teased apart and literature and life have everything to do with each other.”
?Anna Leahy, author of What Happened Was: and Tumor

“It has been said, the universal is found in the specific, and in Cora’s Kitchen all women will find their challenges and longings expressed in unflinching honesty. Kimberly Brown’s characters are faithful to a time, yet timeless, transcending the years to both painfully and beautifully illustrate the struggles women face to find and fulfill their vocations. Spellbinding.”
?Erika Robuck, national bestselling author of The Invisible Woman