An Amazon Best Book of January 2023
Set in 1982, in rural, racially divided Ricksville, Mississippi Wade in the Water tells the story of Ella, a Black, unloved, precocious eleven-year-old, and Ms. St. James, a mysterious white woman from Princeton who appears in Ella's community to carry out some research. Soon, Ms. St. James befriends Ella, who is willing to risk everything to keep her new friend in a town that does not want her there. The relationship between Ella and Ms. St. James becomes more fraught and complex as Ella unwittingly pushes at Ms. St. James carefully constructed boundaries that guard a complicated past, and dangerous secrets that could have devastating consequences.