This Bitter Earth
The Story of Sugar Lacey
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Narrated by:
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Myra Lucretia Taylor
About this listen
Recipient of the Zora Neale Hurston Society Award and a national best-selling author, Bernice L. McFadden returns with her sequel to Sugar. Sugar Lacey comes back home to a past she hoped to forget. She must face many obstacles and deal with secret truths about her family. This Bitter Earth is a striking novel about strength and victory.
©2002 Bernice L. McFadden (P)2003 Recorded Books. LLCListeners also enjoyed...
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In Kenya, when a young American man falls in love with the sophisticated daughter of an African chief, their marriage is strong. But tradition will soon put their union to the supreme test. Gripping and soulful, A Woman's Worth is a tale of cultural divisions, emotional wounds, and a love that struggles to transcend them.
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Awesome
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Rush Home Road
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- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
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When a 70-year-old woman finds a five-year-old girl abandoned on her doorstep, she is thrust into a sorrowful past that can only be conquered with the help of the girl who opened her memory - the very girl she is trying to save. This first novel, according to author Jacquelyn Mitchard, is one of "exquisite power, honesty, and conviction...quite nearly without flaws."
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filthy language and violent content
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By: Lori Lansens
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A Cup of Dust: A Novel of the Dust Bowl
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Ten-year-old Pearl Spence is a daydreamer, playing make-believe to escape life in Oklahoma's Dust Bowl in 1935. The Spences have their share of misfortune, but as the sheriff's family, they've got more than most in this dry, desolate place. They're who the town turns to when there's a crisis or a need. Pearl is proud of her loving, strong family, though she often wearies of tracking down her mentally impaired older sister or wrestling with her grandmother's unshakable belief in a God. Then a mysterious man bent on revenge tramps into her town of Red River.
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Intense
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Cassie Madison has it all: A high-powered advertising career; a stylish Manhattan apartment; and a sophisticated, rich, and gorgeous fiancé. It's a far cry from her childhood in Walton, Georgia, home of the annual Kudzu Festival and hot, sticky summers. And then there are all the bad memories, the heartache. When Cassie's estranged sister calls to say that her father is dying, Cassie knows it's time to set aside her feelings and go home and face the sister she hasn't seen in 15 years.
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Could not finish
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Promise
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In the aftermath of a devastating tornado that rips through the town of Tupelo, Mississippi, at the height of the Great Depression, two women worlds apart - one Black, one White; one a great-grandmother, the other a teenager - fight for their families' survival in this lyrical and powerful novel.
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Mostly Disappointing
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Diane McKinney-Whetstone, the award-winning and best-selling author of Tumbling, presents Trading Dreams at Midnight - - an Essence Book Club Recommended Read. Back in 1984, 15-year-old Neena's mother left and never came back. And now Neena is following in her footsteps.
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Hard to follow
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This Side of the Sky
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Award-winning journalist Elyse Singleton delivers what Essence calls “a gem - the perfect book to curl up with.”
Best friends Lilian and Myraleen, two African American women from rural Mississippi, travel to Europe during World War II to act as members of the Women’s Army Corps. During this time of segregation and destruction, both women discover love and heartbreak, triumph and defeat.
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A Breath of Fresh Air
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The Last Ballad
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Twelve times a week, 28-year-old Ella May Wiggins makes the two-mile trek to and from her job on the night shift at American Mill No. Two in Bessemer City, North Carolina. The insular community considers the mill's owners - the newly arrived Goldberg brothers - white but not American and expects them to pay Ella May and other workers less because they toil alongside African Americans like Violet, Ella May's best friend. While the dirty, hazardous job at the mill earns Ella May a paltry nine dollars for 72 hours of work each week, it's the only opportunity she has.
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Dryer than a popcorn fart
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Lazaretto
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Isolated on an island where two rivers meet, the Lazaretto quarantine hospital is the first stop for immigrants who wish to begin new lives in Philadelphia. The Lazaretto's black live-in staff forge a strong social community, and when one of them receives permission to get married on the island the mood is one of celebration, particularly since the white staff - save the opium-addicted doctor - are given leave for the weekend.
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Mediocre
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Unconditional
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Samantha Crawford has a storybook life: she’s happily married, lives on a ranch where she keeps her beloved horse, and the stories she has written and illustrated since childhood have become popular books. When her husband Billy is killed in a senseless act of violence, Sam loses her faith and the will to live. But a sudden death-defying encounter with two children leads to a reunion with her old friend Papa Joe Bradford.
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excelent
- By susan on 11-15-12
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What listeners say about This Bitter Earth
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Neshia
- 06-05-21
A Must Read
I really felt the narrator brought each character to life in the way the author intended. Both Sugar and This Bitter Earth are beautiful written and captured me as a reader/listener. You won't be disappointed!!
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- Samaria Huff
- 04-21-21
Follow up to Sugar
Not quite as good as Sugar in my opinion, but it was still good, most sequels are flops in my opinion, but this one was alright. If you really just need to know what happens to everyone, it’s worth it.
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- heather podesta
- 11-30-20
OMG You blew my mind
The connections, the investment in the characters, the ability to transport listeners to Bigelow and the narrators powerful voice all made for a journey that made me late for work more than once because I couldn't stop listening.
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- Danielle LT
- 03-19-22
Beautifully written !
This second part of Sugar was phenomenal !
Again the narrator did a fantastic job. The story answered all questions.
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- Monica
- 03-18-17
excellent
loved it. excellent narrator. Bernie is superb author ! ! ! ! ! ! !
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- CJ
- 09-28-17
Holds your attention
I enjoyed the sequel. The book picks up where the first left off and completes the story. I love the title and I have a great respect for our black people who survived that time. The weaving of the story, the many relationships. Resolution in life forgiveness and God's vengeance is always timely. Some much bitterness but so much strength. I respect this novel. The performance by the narrator was amazing. She has a great voice and moved with each character where you focus on the story. The entire time you are sitting on the edge of your seat taking it all in....I enjoyed it all Great writing!
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- khalia
- 11-11-24
a good read ,listen
I read the first book years ago, never knew there was, a part 2. This was good, and makes you think about all the relatives we know nothing about. Makes you want to do dna test on your partners.
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- brenda transon
- 08-30-19
Awesome
I finished this book wanting more. The narrator is awesome and the story closed a lot of secrets. But I wish there was more about JJ and Merci and so on.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-28-15
A must read!
I could not stop listening to the story. Great character development most interesting plot and very colorful descriptions of people and environment. Most entertaining, I highly recommend "This Bitter Earth"
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- S. Honeycutt
- 05-21-21
Everything I hoped for
When I finished Sugar, I felt like I’d said goodbye to friends. When I found out (thanks, Ms. McFadden!) that This Bitter Earth was the sequel, I snatched it up and started listening right away.
These characters are so real and so sympathetically drawn that I wish I could knock on Joe and Pearl’s door and share a piece of her sweet potato pie while we catch up on how everybody’s doing — Sugar, Mercy, JJ, Seth (and Gloria and Jewel too), and maybe even Shirley Brown.
In family we find all the best, and sometimes all the worst, of this life. Sugar and This Bitter Earth showcase those themes. I’m so glad I discovered these stories and am looking forward to reading more of Ms. McFadden’s work.
Ms. Taylor does a fantastic job, narrating both books.
Highly recommend!
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