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Marie Benedict, author of The First Ladies

The daughter of formerly enslaved parents, Mary McLeod Bethune refuses to back down as white supremacists attempt to thwart her work. She marches on as an activist and an educator, and as her reputation grows, she becomes a celebrity. Eleanor Roosevelt is eager to make Mary's acquaintance. Initially drawn together because of their shared belief in women’s rights and the power of education, Mary and Eleanor become fast friends. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected president, the two women begin to collaborate more closely. Eleanor becomes a controversial First Lady for her outspokenness, particularly on civil rights. And when she receives threats because of her strong ties to Mary, it only fuels the women’s desire to fight together for justice and equality.

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Week of June 3, 2024

Paperback releases for the week of June 3rd include CROOK MANIFESTO, a powerful and hugely entertaining novel that summons 1970s New York in all its seedy glory and continues Colson Whitehead's Harlem saga that began with HARLEM SHUFFLE; FLAGS ON THE BAYOU, James Lee Burke's Edgar Award-winning novel set in Civil War-era Louisiana as the South transforms, and a brilliant cast of characters are caught in the maelstrom; GOOD NIGHT, IRENE by Luis Alberto Urrea, an exhilarating World War II epic that chronicles an extraordinary young woman’s heroic frontline service in the Red Cross; THE FIRST LADIES, Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray's enlightening novel about the extraordinary partnership between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune; and MOTHERHOOD SO WHITE, an honest, vulnerable and uplifting memoir in which Nefertiti Austin shares her story of starting a family through adoption as a single Black woman.

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