What do you do when you have no choice but to return home, yet home is the last place where you want to go?

In Edwina Perkins’ debut novel, The Colors of Home, Ebony McMullen faces just such a dilemma. After losing her husband to cancer, facing foreclosure of their Colorado home, and dealing with not just her grief but that of her children, she packs their SUV, and they begin the long drive from Colorado to the town of Home, North Carolina, where her husband left her the family home.

During the long, long drive, Ebony faces many challenges, including the ways her children process grief. Owen, the oldest, has gotten into legal trouble that drained the remaining family finances and broke the trust he had with his mom. Scotty, the middle child, simply yearns to fit in, and Destiny, the daughter, who has Downs Syndrome, misses her daddy but keeps Ebony grounded in the present.

The Colors of Home contains many layers and weaves into the story Ebony’s difficulties of adjusting in a town where she still feels tendrils of racism reaching out to ensnare her. Yet through it all, she begins to realize that while many may not welcome her, some do, and there’s more to Home than she ever realized.

Perkins has written a contemporary novel that will hold its readers close as they learn about what many have endured yet few want to admit still exists in some places today. Bravo for a job well done, and I look forward to more from this writer.