Reaching Back (Paperback or Softback)

In Reaching Back, award-winning author Nea Anna Simone introduces Mignon Samuels and begins a powerful multigenerational saga that explores legacy, identity, and the enduring strength of Black womanhood. Through the discovery of an aging leather-bound journal, Mignon is drawn into the hidden lives of four generations of women whose stories have shaped her family-and her own understanding of self.

As Mignon reads the journal, she uncovers narratives of love, survival, sacrifice, and silence passed down from her great-grandmother to her mother. These intimate accounts reveal the unspoken choices and compromises women made in order to endure, often at the cost of their own desires. What begins as an exploration of family history becomes a mirror, reflecting the patterns that have quietly shaped Mignon's life.

At the same time, Mignon is confronting the unraveling of her marriage and the collapse of the life she believed she was meant to live. Caught between inherited expectations and a growing need for truth, she must decide whether to continue repeating generational cycles or risk redefining herself on her own terms. The voices of the women who came before her challenge her to confront what has been buried and to consider what healing truly requires.

Reaching Back is an emotionally rich, fast-paced novel about memory, identity, and transformation. Nea Anna Simone's prose is lyrical, honest, and deeply human, offering a nuanced exploration of how personal choices are shaped by generational history. As the opening novel in the Mignon Samuels Trilogy, Reaching Back lays the foundation for a story that continues in Reborn and concludes in The Substance of Things, tracing one woman's journey toward self-definition across the weight of inherited legacy.