A young woman is caught up in a revolutionary movement in Fabienne Josaphat's historical novel, KINGDOM OF NO TOMORROW.

College student Nettie Boileau is living in Oakland, California, and studying to become a doctor when her friend and one-time lover, Clia, introduces her to the Black Panther Party. Nettie is immediately attracted to the “seductive fearlessness” of the group, which preaches the gospel of radical liberation and community power. (Josaphat includes stirring excerpts from real speeches by historical figures such as Stokely Carmichael and Fred Hampton to help explain the Panthers’ message.) She's also drawn to Melvin Mosley, a committed foot soldier in the Panthers' war against white supremacy and imperialism. But Nettie's interest in the era's leftist political movements (the book opens in 1968) is tempered by her own painful history with rebellion and resistance.

"The specter of violence hangs over the novel, and it arrives in waves in the book's thrilling final third, when the action accelerates."

When Nettie was a child in Haiti, her doctor father was part of the opposition to dictator François “Papa Doc” Duvalier. She witnessed his murder at the hands of Duvalier’s supporters. The newly orphaned Nettie (her mother died from complications of childbirth) went to live with her aunt in America. But that traumatic past has shaped her in ways that Nettie is reluctant to unpack, at least at first. She holds herself apart from others. A potential romantic relationship with Clia sputters. She loves her aunt, her only living family, while also resenting what she sees as Tante Mado’s judgment and disapproval.

When her white, SDS-member neighbor, Gilda, makes overtures of friendship, Nettie is understandably standoffish. But the Panthers represent a chance to be part of something larger than herself. She is drawn to the group because of their work in the community, which includes free clinics and a breakfast program for children. At the same time, she's occasionally troubled by their willingness to engage in what they argue is politically necessary violence. “Anyone who says that nonviolence is a solution is a fool and a jackass,” one character declares early on. Nettie isn’t so sure.

Josaphat's book highlights how even as radical political movements fight to topple systems of oppression, they can perpetuate other forms of power. Women like Nettie occupy a complex and contested space within the Panther movement. On the one hand, they are a vital part of the group, often taking on the daily grunt work needed to support their various programs. At the same time, it's the men who hold most of the visible power. Some of them don't hesitate to use that power to their own benefit, as Clia discovers when she gets involved with a toxic, abusive man named Clayton, who argues that it’s “counterrevolutionary” for her to reject his advances. Nettie's deepening relationship with the enigmatic Melvin is also colored by these tensions, as she struggles to balance her desire for a future with the man she loves with their shared commitment to the Panther cause.

Nettie and Melvin's relationship only gets more complicated when she follows him to Chicago, where he is working with the charismatic but doomed Fred Hampton. The specter of violence hangs over the novel, and it arrives in waves in the book's thrilling final third, when the action accelerates. Nettie finds herself navigating an increasingly volatile personal and political situation as it becomes clear there’s a traitor to the cause in the Panthers’ Chicago chapter.

Ultimately, it's the women in Nettie’s life --- some of whom she's been holding at arm's length --- who come through for her when she needs it most, in an emotional testament to the power of sisterhood.