Thomas, Trisha, What Passes as Love

In 1850, at age six, Dahlia Holt is taken from the only home she knows and moved into the big house to serve her two older sisters. They share a father, who owns the house and its slaves. On her sixteenth birthday, Dahlia gets to dress up in one of the sister’s discarded dresses for a trip to the city. There, she gets separated from her family, and meets a young Englishman who thinks she’s white. She introduces herself as an orphan without a family. It starts out as a lark, but her adventures could destroy those she left behind. Especially after her father puts a high bounty on her head, because she is, after all, a runaway slave.

TRISHA R. THOMAS is the author of Un-Nappily in Love, Nappily in Bloom, Nappily Faithful, Roadrunner, Would I Lie to You, and Nappily Ever After, which was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work. Her debut novel was optioned by Halle Berry and Universal Pictures for adaptation to film. Thomas also speaks about self-esteem and beauty issues as a guest on CNN and lives in Riverside, California.