Book trailer - "The Reading Lessons" by Carole Lanham

I am not a fast reader, I never was, but lately with a gathering of many things around me my free time shrank further and my reading choices have to be made more carefully. This doesn’t change the situation of the titles spotted long before their publication date and that I am eagerly looking forward to read for one reason or another. As I previously said, one such title and one of my most anticipated novels of 2013 is Carole Lanham’s “The Reading Lessons”. The main reason for my interest in “The Reading Lessons” is, as also previously stated, my love for Carole Lanham’s debut collection, “The Whisper Jar”, one of the best books I read last year and not only. There is not much time left until the release of “The Reading Lessons” – the novel is due to be published on May – but since there is still a month until then, we can enjoy the book trailer of Carole Lanham’s “The Reading Lessons”, a very nice way to whet the appetite for this intriguing novel.

Mississippi 1920: Nine year old servant, Hadley Crump, finds himself drawn into a secret world when he is invited to join wealthy Lucinda Browning’s dirty book club. No one suspects that the bi-racial son of the cook is anything more to Lucinda than a charitable obligation, but behind closed doors, O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright. What begins as a breathless investigation into the more juicy parts of literature quickly becomes a consuming and life-long habit for two people who would not otherwise be left alone together. As lynchings erupt across the South and the serving staff is slowly cut to make way for new mechanical household conveniences, Hadley begins to understand how dangerous and precarious his situation is.

The Reading Lessons follows the lives of two people born into a world that is unforgiving as a Hangman’s knot. Divided by skin color and joined by books, Hadley and Lucinda are forced to come together in the only place that will allow it, a land of printed words and dark secrets.