At First Light

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What to expect

1993, Key West, Florida. When a Ku Klux Klan official is shot in broad daylight, all eyes turn to the person holding the gun: a 96-year-old Cuban woman who will say nothing except to admit her guilt.

1919. Mixed-race Alicia Cortez arrives in Key West exiled in disgrace from her family in Havana. At the same time, damaged war hero John Morales returns home on the last US troop ship from Europe. As love draws them closer in this time of racial segregation, people are watching, including Dwayne Campbell, poised on the brink of manhood and struggling to do what's right. And then the Ku Klux Klan comes to town...

Inspired by real events, At First Light weaves together a decades-old grievance and the consequences of a promise made as the sun rose on a dark day in American history.

Includes the first chapter of Summertime, Vanessa's debut novel.

Read by Anjoa Andoh

(p) 2017 Orion publishing group

Critics Review

  • I loved it! I was completely riveted to this book, and couldn’t put it down. Such a heartbreaking, beautiful story, told with such style and panache. It really brought Key West at that time alive for me – all the wildness, the vitality, the brutality, injustice and beauty were recreated with a mesmerizing clarity, and embodied in characters who lived and breathed. I could not put it down

    Katherine Webb, bestselling author of The Legacy

  • Brilliantly paced and utterly immersive, I savoured every sentence of this wonderful novel. Vanessa Lafaye’s vivid prose transported me to 1919 Key West, with its brothels and bars, beaches and swamps, conjuring a place where love can flourish – but danger lurks. At First Light uncovers a disturbing era of American history, offering an unflinching insight into the dark and bizarre world of the Ku Klux Klan. While the political backdrop is fascinating, it never overwhelms the driving force of the novel – a love story which is both tragic and uplifting

    Juliet West, author of The Faithful

  • With characters and a story as warm and colourful as its Key West setting, Vanessa Lafaye’s At First Light illuminates a shady period of American history with panache, style and a hearty punch to the gut. In Alicia Cortez she has created one of the most engaging heroines to walk across the pages of a historical novel in a long while

    Jason Hewitt, author of Devastation Road

  • I loved this dark yet sunlit story of love and revenge, set against a fascinating backdrop of convergent events

    Lissa Evans, author of Their Finest

  • An unputdownable, intriguing story of vengeance with tragedy at its heart

    WOMAN AND HOME

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