Chelene Knight

＂Junie has always yearned for more. Born and raised on the Bellereine plantation in the Alabama countryside, the sixteen-year-old spends her days working for the McQueens and serving as a maid for their daughter Violet, her oldest and closest friend. In the daytime, she entertains herself with poetry and imagines grand romances and faraway worlds. Under the cover of night, she steals away to the woods, curling up by the riverbank. But consumed by grief over the recent death of her older sister Minnie, she has vowed never to leave her family’s side. Her world is capsized at the arrival of the Taylors, a wealthy brother and sister from New Orleans. The McQueens are keen to marry Violet off to Mr. Taylor, and if they succeed, Junie would be ripped away from everyone she knows and loves＂--

Erin Crosby Eckstine is an author of speculative historical fiction, personal essays, and anything else she’s in the mood for. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Eckstine grew up between the South and Los Angeles before moving to New York City to attend Barnard College. She earned a master’s in secondary English education from Stanford University and taught high school English for six years. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their cats.