Orphan Mother (Hicks)

Book Reviews
The ingredients for a compelling drama are there, but The Orphan Mother falls short. The storyline is plodding and there’s no real drama.... In Mariah, Hicks has created a strong and noble soul, whose comfort with herself allows her to withstand the indignities of racism.... Mariah’s reaction to Theopolis’ death lacks the passion or devastation of a parent whose only child has been viciously murdered.... The story gives readers some idea about the conflicts that marred Reconstruction and fueled Jim Crow, but it falls short of tying America’s racial past to its present.
Jeanne Marie Brown - Fort Worth Star-Telegram


Hicks is a talented storyteller, and this story moves at a clip, but it feels deliberate and inorganic, his characters sometimes seemingly just vehicles moving the story forward.... Only George seems truly flesh and blood, and is the most memorable character.
Publishers Weekly


Hicks's bittersweet novel reveals a woman discovering a new sense of self in slavery's aftermath. She becomes driven by a demand for justice, though justice for blacks is almost impossible to imagine. A beautifully rendered portrait for all lovers of Civil War fiction. —Bette-Lee Fox
Library Journal


Hicks extends his Tennessee-set historical saga into the...Reconstruction Era [which] was one of the messiest times in American history, not least because establishing civil and political rights for African-Americans newly freed from slavery was left unfinished for another century. That turmoil forms the setting for Hicks' latest... Satisfying historical fiction.
Kirkus Reviews