My first novel!!!

[Amber_Essence95]

My first novel, "The Fruits of Atterley," has just been released and is available at the Barnes & Noble website (www.barnesandnoble.com) and can be ordered at any Barnes & Noble bookstore using ISBN # 0-595-15241-4.

"The Fruits of Atterley" is a story about the forbidden love between a black slave and her white master in antebellum South Carolina. I have included the information from the back cover below. I wrote the book during my last two years of law school and edited it for another year after I graduated. A great deal of research was necessary to make it as historically accurate as possible. If you enjoy novels of this genre and choose to purchase it, feel free to contact me at literature@angelabanks.com with any comments or criticisms.


Angela Banks
Spring '95
Epsilon Beta / The University of Texas at Austin

* * *

In "The Fruits of Atterley", Angela Banks' first novel, she explores a controversial subject, the covert relationships that often existed between white masters and their black slaves in the antebellum South.

She tells the story of life on Atterley, a rice plantation situated along the Waccamaw River in the South Carolina Low Country. Atterley's owners are the socially and politically prominent Riley family. Gus, the Rileys' only child, and Promise, their slave girl, are raised and educated together in Atterley's main house. While Gus' playmates are a rowdy troop of slave boys, Promise wants nothing more than to grow up to be like her genteel mistress. When Gus and Promise reach adulthood, their childhood friendship is tested, and the two find themselves torn between their feelings for each other and the roles that Southern society demands they play.

The strength of "The Fruits of Atterley" lies in the compelling nature of its topic and the complexities of its colorful characters. With captivating, elegant prose, Angela Banks tells a touching love story complicated by racism, family loyalty and the political tensions that gripped South Carolina in the years before the Civil War.