Brass Ankle Blues A Novel

"When I was seven I told my father that I wanted to grow up to be invisible."As a young woman of mixed race, Nellie Kincaid is about to encounter the strange, unsettling summer of her fifteenth year. Reeling from the recent separation of her parents, Nellie finds herself traveling to the family's lake house with only her father and her estranged cousin, leaving behind the life and the mother she is trying to forget.As the summer progresses, Nellie will have to define herself, navigating the twists and turns of first love. At the same time, her family is becoming more and more divided by the day. Does her newfound identity require her to distance herself from those she loves, or will it draw her closer?

Rachel M. Harper, a graduate of Brown University, has been published in Chicago Review, African American Review, and the anthology Mending the World: Stories of Family by Contemporary Black Writers. She lives in California.