Spanning from revolutionary-era Haiti to present-day Atlanta, Girls Who Burn First weaves together the stories of five women bound by a single object: a carved wooden comb passed quietly across generations.

Z�na�de, who is fifteen years old, is fleeing from a fire in Saint-Domingue in 1803 while carrying names that the archives refuse to remember. Amara is a West Point cadet in 2005, hiding resistance in regulation seams. In 2023, Lyah discovers a cloth that hums when she holds it—and starts to remember events yet to come. Other girls follow suit, stitching, humming, burning, and refusing to erase themselves.

Told in fragments, dreams, and spirals, this novel blends historical fiction, magical realism, and oral history to explore how Black women have survived by remembering each other in silence, in cloth, and in flame.

For readers of Jesmyn Ward, Toni Morrison, and Rivers Solomon, this is a story about legacy, rage, love, and the kind of fire that does not consume—but passes forward.

If you’ve ever felt like your body remembers more than your mouth can say… You are already part of the thread.

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We first started out as ?The Paperback Exchange,? a chain of physical bookstores where we would part exchange your beloved books for new stories to transport you to faraway places. However, as shopping started to evolve to online shops and marketplaces, we bid our stores goodbye to become ?PBShop.? This transition has only allowed us to blossom as we now ship thousands of titles to book lovers across the globe. We pride ourselves in being a community of local book lovers which allows our passion and devotion to shine in everything we do. In 2020 we not only celebrated our 20th birthday but our 1st birthday as being completely employee owned after becoming an E.O.T in September 2019. We are proud to be different and embrace standing apart on a book mountain by working from a virtual inventory which allows us to provide thousands of books that may be difficult to get for your bookshelf or your studies. Working with a number of different suppliers allows us to explore other avenues such as puzzles, sheet music and even stationery so we really do have something for everyone. Life is about being versatile in all realms of existence. If this is your first visit or you are a returning customer, we would like to welcome you to the PBShop family, for there is no friend as loyal as a book. We are a company who put our customers at the centre of everything we do as we understand the importance of reading because once you learn to read, you will forever be free. There are a whole lot of things in this world of ours that we are yet to explore, which is why we will forever inspire curious minds.

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