(Nicole Mondestin)

Maura Cheeks is the author of the brand new novel Acts of Forgiveness.

Her debut novel is set in a slightly speculative America, in a world where the government has approved reparation payments for black Americans if they can prove they are descended from slaves to tell the story.

She focuses on the Revel family as they struggle to keep their family construction business afloat while retracing their lineage throughout the book.

With the Revel family, Maura shows us people praying, hoping, rooting for the Forgiveness Act and those fighting against it, sometimes violently.

Cheeks asks, can forgiveness be political and can it be lasting?

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