THE BLUEPRINT

In 2030, a Black woman seeks emancipation from the white government official who owns her.

Solenne Bonet is a DoS (Descendent of Slavery) who, when she was 15, was delivered to the white man the algorithm had assigned her to until it was time for her to be married to a Black man and have children. But her fate is derailed when Bastien Martin, the president’s son, spots Solenne and claims her for his own, beginning a five-year relationship during which he refuses to set her free. This novel imagines a second Civil War beginning in 1954, after which the country established military rule, reinstated slavery for Black women, forced Black men to be in the military, and outlawed reproductive choice. Solenne has been raised to be a concubine, but she grows up hearing the tales of her ancestor Henriette, a Fulani girl brought to this country on a slave ship, who repeatedly tried to escape the master who forced her to bear multiple children; eventually, Solenne begins to compose a book about Henriette to trace her own lineage and map out how she too might seek freedom. Solenne hopes to escape Bastien by fleeing to Louisiana, the last remaining free state, only to be subject to his political influence and technological monitoring. Solenne grapples with the tensions and manipulations involved when Bastien says he’s devoted to her while working politically and privately to further restrict her freedom. Rashad’s fantastic debut evokes familiar history, such as Sally Hemings’ forced relationship with Thomas Jefferson, yet is also wholly new, weaving together vividly imagined characters in Solenne and Henriette and deftly moving through multiple time periods while capturing Solenne’s haunted yet strong voice: “I was the storm. That’s what [the president] said when I was sixteen. Now I was the uprooted tree the storm sent careening through windows. I would wreck everything.”

Horrifying, captivating, and full of urgency.