The Blueprint

Rae Giana Rashad

A harrowing novel set in an alternative United States —a world of injustice and bondage in which a young Black woman becomes the concubine of a powerful white government official

Solenne Bonet lives in Texas, where choice no longer exists. An algorithm determines a Black woman’s occupation, spouse, and residence. She finds solace in penning the biography of Henriette, an ancestor who’d been an enslaved concubine to a wealthy planter in 1800s Louisiana. But history repeats itself when Solenne, lonely and naïve, finds herself entangled with Bastien Martin, a high-ranking government official.