Catching Moondrops
According to Noah Jarvis, “Slaves was freed decades ago,” but in Calloway, Virginia, the rights of colored folk are anything but equal. Gemma Teague came to live with Jessilyn Lassiter when her parents died. They are like sisters; Gemma is colored, and when she first moved in, the Ku Klux Klan made life difficult for the Lassiter family. It is now 1938. Jim Crow laws are in place, and the lines of race are separate and clearly delineated.
One day Tal Pritchett, a colored doctor, opens a practice in town, and it is expected his presence will stir the ire of the KKK. When Jessilyn stumbles upon the swinging corpse of a friend, the horrific deed tests her spiritual beliefs. With rage and reckless disregard for her welfare, she decides to confront those responsible. Her journey will prompt doubt in her own ability to love until she witnesses a miracle of forgiveness between two unlikely women, one white and one colored.
Catching Moondrops is a serious and haunting historical fiction novel. Valent’s story of racial prejudice is soul-searchingly moving and sadly still relevant today, as we continue to face the enormity of the evil ingrained in our nation’s past.
