By Brian Dunlap

Good news from Los Angeles writer Natasha Deón. The following is from her Facebook page. A big congratulations goes out to Mrs. Deón and all her hard work:

“Honored to receive the 2017 Best Debut Novel Prize by the American Library Association, Black Caucus. Thank you librarians from around the nation! ❤️ And I can’t wait to meet them in Atlanta this summer for the ceremony. If you’re at the @americanlibraryassociation conference today, @counterpointpress is giving away a few copies of GRACE to celebrate in Booth 3421. Yay! Get one!”

Grace is a novel about , according to Amazon, “a runaway slave in the 1840s south. [L]ife on the run can be just as dangerous as life under a sadistic Massa. That’s what fifteen-year-old Naomi learns after she escapes the brutal confines of life on an Alabama plantation and takes refuge in a Georgia brothel run by a gun-toting Jewish madam named Cynthia. Amidst a revolving door of gamblers and prostitutes, Naomi falls into a love affair with a smooth-talking white man named Jeremy.”

Congratulations again to Natasha Deón and the continued recognition of the Los Angeles literary community.