Fiction/Literature
Trade Paperback l 240 pages | $15.95
ISBN-13: 978-1-61775-035-9
*Forthcoming: February 2012 -- order now!

* Click here for nationwide events featuring Bernice L. McFadden

The long-awaited reissue of McFadden's best-selling second novel praised by Toni Morrison, USA Today, Washington Post, and others--published simultaneously with McFadden's new novel Gathering of Waters.

"McFadden's reissued second novel takes an unflinching look at the corrosive nature of alcoholism . . . This is not a story of easy redemption . . . McFadden writes candidly about the treacherous hold of addiction."
--Publishers Weekly

"Riveting . . . so nicely avoids the sentimentality that swirls around the subject matter. I am as impressed by its structural strength as by the searing and expertly imagined scenes."
--Toni Morrison, author of Beloved

"[A] masterpiece . . . full of heart and emotion . . . I hope you love the book as much as I did, and I hope it moves you as much as it did me, changes you as it did me."
--James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, from the Introduction

"Riveting."
--Essence

"Ms. McFadden is one of those rare talents who can keep a reader enthralled regardless of the topic . . . This is a story that cuts across all race and social strata in its need to be told."
--Dallas Morning News

"The Warmest December is written with a searing and vivid quality that makes it impossible to stop reading."
--Cleveland Plain Dealer

FOR KENZIE, GROWING UP IN THE LOWE HOUSEHOLD means opening the bottom drawer of her father's dresser to choose which belt she'll be whipped with that night, furtive trips to the Bee Hive liquor store for her father's vodka, and dreaming of the day she can escape apartment 5A.

BUOYED BY THE LYRICAL, REDEMPTIVE VOICE that characterizes McFadden's writing, The Warmest December tells the powerful, deeply moving story of one Brooklyn family and the alcoholism and abuse that marked the years of their lives. Narrated by Kenzie Lowe, a young woman reminiscent of Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John, the story moves fluidly between the past and the present as she visits her dying father and finds that choices she once thought beyond her control are very much hers to make. The Warmest December is ultimately a cathartic tale of hope, healing, and forgiveness.

BERNICE L. McFADDEN is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels including the classic Sugar, and Glorious, which was featured in O, The Oprah Magazine, selected as the debut title for the One Book, One Harlem program, and was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. She is a two-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist, as well as the recipient of two fiction honor awards from the BCALA. McFadden lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Praise for Glorious by Bernice L. McFadden:

*Finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Fiction
*Winner of the BCALA Literary Award for Fiction
*Debut selection of the One Book, One Harlem program

"McFadden's lively and loving rendering of New York hews closely to the jazz-inflected city of myth . . . McFadden has a wonderful ear for dialogue, and her entertaining prose equally accommodates humor and pathos."
--New York Times Book Review

"She brings Harlem to astounding life . . . Easter's hope for love to overthrow hate . . . cogently stands for America's potential, and McFadden's novel is a triumphant portrayal of the ongoing quest."
--Publishers Weekly

"Bernice L. McFadden's novel Glorious, which starts with a bang-up prologue, has a strong main character (based in part on Zora Neale Hurston), hard-driving prose, and historic sweep of several decades, including the years of the Harlem Renaissance, which has always fascinated me."
--Jane Ciabattari, National Book Critics Circle President

"The book is sweeping in scope and brings to life the tenuous existence of an African-American artist in the early twentieth century."
--Vogue

"I hadn't read a word of hers before Glorious, but I will follow her from now on."
--Alan Cheuse, NPR