The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips

Review written by a cozy specialist (January 2021): You’ll want to spend your entire lazy day reading Delores’ brilliance. Great writing is an understatement; the characters will come alive effortlessly and become unforgettable. Make sure you’re comfy because you probably won’t leave the couch for a few hours.

”Pakersfield, Georgia, 1958: Thirteen-year-old Tangy Mae Quinn is the sixth of ten fatherless siblings. She is the darkest-skinned among them and therefore the ugliest in her mother, Rozelle’s, estimation, but she’s also the brightest. Rozelle—beautiful, charismatic, and light-skinned—exercises a violent hold over her children. Fearing abandonment, she pulls them from school at the age of twelve and sends them to earn their keep for the household, whether in domestic service, in the fields, or at “the farmhouse” on the edge of town, where Rozelle beds local men for money. 

 
But Tangy Mae has been selected to be part of the first integrated class at a nearby white high school. She has a chance to change her life, but can she break from Rozelle’s grasp without ruinous—even fatal—consequences?”