Nikki May’s This Motherless Land is the latest pick for Jenna Bush Hager’s Today show book club.

May’s novel, published Tuesday by Mariner, is a retelling of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. The book follows Funke, a 10-year-old Nigerian girl who is sent to live with her mother’s family in England after her mother and brother are killed in a car crash. She befriends her cousin, Liv, but the two are torn apart after another tragedy.

A critic for Kirkus praised the book as “a meaningful modern tale of becoming, belonging, and the ties that bind.”

Hager announced the book’s selection on the Today show, saying, “It is such a beautiful book.…You are going to love this modern take on Mansfield Park.…It’s a story full of secrets, romance—of course, Jane Austen—and a conversation about identity.”

May told Today.com that the idea for her novel was drawn from her own life.

“It’s a really personal story because when we meet Funke in 1978, she’s basically living my life—my middle class life in Lagos,” she said. “She’s living in my house. The African gray parrot Billy was my sister’s parrot. She rides my green chopper around the campus streets with my little brother. She goes to my beach. Her mother is very much based on my mother.”

She shared news of her book’s selection on the social platform X, writing, “Do not pinch me! Living the dream and I [don’t] want to wake up!”

Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.