Sorrowland

“Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon contains so much wisdom and insight, wrapped in an abundance of passion and fury and tenderness. This is the first book I've read in ages that I'm certain I will come back to again and again, because there are rich gorgeous passages that I already know will mean more to me on subsequent readings. There is so much going on in this book, too: the spectre of what happens when rebellion is co-opted, our longstanding practice of using Black bodies for cruel and unethical experiments, the audacity of queer love. The arc of this book takes Vern and her babies away from civilization and then back to it — but they return changed, and they change everyone else, and this book restored my faith in our potential to transform just when I needed it most.”
—Charlie Jane Anders

"Sorrowland, from Rivers Solomon, is a fantastical, fierce reckoning. It is the story of Vern, a young girl fleeing the only life she has ever known, her abusive husband, the cult he leads, to create a life for herself and her babies. But the tentacles of Cainland, the home she left, are always following her as she grows into a young woman and something more, something terrifying and powerful that just might allow her to break free from all that haunts her. Sorrowland is gorgeous and the writing, the storytelling, they are magnificent. This country has a dark history of what it’s willing to do to black bodies and Rivers Solomon lays that truth bare in a most unexpected, absolutely brilliant way." —Roxane Gay


“Sorrowland delivers! Black Power cults. Government conspiracies. Post-Human transformations. A mother willing to defy everything and everyone—even nature itself—to protect her family. Rivers Solomon has once again created an engrossing, emotional, and original read with pages that demand to be turned. The writing is visceral and soul-clenching. The characters--bold, creative, and memorable. The action, heart-stopping. This is imaginative storytelling at its finest. Once I started, I could not put down Sorrowland until I reached the end. And then I wanted more!” —P. Djèlí Clark, author of Ring Shout


"A furious utopia. Utterly compelling, brilliant and terrifying. Sorrowland seizes the history of white supremacy, racist medical experimentation, and the dream––and danger––of the commune, and gnashes it into something magnificent and truly reparative. An epic fantasy that interweaves righteous, large-scale confrontations with power, extremely sexy and moving erotic gothic horror, and exquisite, meticulous renderings of the daily life of parenting. This is a fairy tale for adults, spangled in the wreckage of the world. A gorgeous, singular, and profound work." –Jordy Rosenberg, author of Confessions of the Fox


“Sorrowland is a wonderland of fantastical and frightening, magical and real, in a world refreshingly unlike ours, yet scarily the same. At the center of this world and leaping off the page is Vern: unstoppable, unforgettable, and unlike anyone you have ever seen before.”—Marlon James, author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf


“Sorrowland is a raw, powerful, and visceral read. With Vern, Rivers Solomon has created a woman who simply side-steps her damage, and level after level of difficulty—young, Black, queer, blind, alone in the woods with two newborns and pursued by monstrous government agents—to assume her own power. Nature, joy, science, belonging, human metamorphosis, generational oppression, strength, and sheer lust for life: if Toni Morrison, M. Night Shyamalan, and Marge Piercy got together they might, if they were lucky, produce something with the unstoppable exhilaration of this novel. Sorrowland is sui generis.” —Nicola Griffith

Praise for An Unkindness of Ghosts

"What Solomon achieves with this debut — the sharpness, the depth, the precision — puts me in mind of a syringe full of stars...It is not a happy book. I love it like I love food, I love it for what it did to me, I love it for having made me feel stronger and more sure in a nightmare world, but it is not a happy book. It is an antidote to poison." —Amal El-Mohtar, NPR

"Rivers Solomon's debut science fiction novel is cunning, dark, and unapologetic; atmospheric and visceral; the kind of story that pulls you in and doesn't let go." —Shondaland

Praise for The Deep

"Solomon's text stands alone as a wise, daring, touching, and important addition to the Afrofuturist canon, and one that carries its own rhythmic and melodic grace — not to mention a wholly relevant and righteous gravity." —Justin Heller, NPR