Kindred by Octavia E. Butler is partly a science fiction/time travel novel and part historic African American fiction. Dana, a modern black woman in CA, is celebrating her 26th birthday when she is transported back in time more than 150 years to the antebellum South. There in the slave quarters she learns that she is in the home of her ancestors. Tied to a white boy whose life she saves, she is pulled back and forth through time over and over again, and each time the situation becomes more life threatening.

As fantastical as this sounds, Butler’s novel is grounded firmly in history and paints a searing portrait of the lives of slaves at that time. Powerful and gripping, I was completely transported by this book and I wasn’t able to put it down; I read it all the way through in one night. A highly recommended read.