Forbidden Circles

Author(s): Vee Williams Garcia

Location(s): Paris, Washington DC

Genre(s): Fiction

Era(s): Mid 1920s

It’s 1925, and the Harlem Renaissance has expanded to cities beyond New York. Black writers, musicians, and artists are in vogue and think they can do anything. Nora Johnson, a honey yellow-skinned Howard University instructor, is no exception. Desiring to become a professional painter, Nora travels to Paris, France, to study art for a year. While in Paris, she throws caution into the Seine River and heads towards self destruction. Rather than play it safe with Douglas Stills, a hotel doorman who wants to be closer to her, Nora befriends Dianne, an Afro-English student who lives by her own rules. Then Nora speeds ahead in an affair with Vernon Cooper, a gorgeous chocolate-hued jazz trumpet player full of secrets and lies. For going against her upper middle class upbringing and her gut instincts, Nora pays a high price. A story of passion and loss, loyalty and betrayal, ruthless abuse and redeeming love, Forbidden Circles captures a unique time and an enchanting city, and then treats the reader to a riveting conclusion.

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