Yvonne Battle Felton Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Yvonne Battle Felton is an American author of fiction books best known for her debut novel Remembered. She was born in Pennsylvania and spent her childhood in New Jersey she graduated from Johns Hopkins University with masters of arts in writing and from Lancaster University with a PhD in creative writing.

Remembered

Remembered tells a story of a character named Spring, her son Edward and her later sister Tempe. Edward works as a mechanic in the streetcars, and he has had the ambition to drive one of the cars in a race. He accidentally causes a commotion when he crashes a trolley into a window of a store.
The police rescue him from the mob when it is too late, and he now lies in the hospital bed with no hope of surviving. Spring, his mother is called to sit by his bedside and takes that chance to narrate to him about his ancestry.

Spring has been enjoying the company of Tempe, her dead sister since her death and often communicates with her. This time she finds herself talking to Tempe’s ghost as she is waiting for her unconscious son in the hospital. Tempe advises Spring to tell her son the truth before it is too late. Edward has been in a coma for some time now after he drove a street car into a store window.

He went into a coma not because of the crash but because of the severe beating from he got from the ‘white’ bystanders who witnessed the accident. It seems that Spring is not the only one waiting to talk to Edward since the police are also waiting to interrogate him on what went on.
Philadelphia system is faced with a massive dispute between the company and the Union. It is evident that segregation is still prevalent in this city, and if not dealt with, it might bring it to an explosion. The question remains, was Edward’s accident intentional? Was he attempting to kill and injure innocent people? Or did it just happen by mistake?

As the sisters are praying beside Edward’s bed, the author takes us back to the 1840s when Walker’s family and the farm were cursed. No baby was to grow up to work on the farm for him. Walker is forced to take a free young girl to give birth to new babies who will later work on the farm.
Spring has now to go back to the farm to get some answers on why the farm was cursed. She has to use a book that she has been keeping for many years now. The book has many connections to the past happenings, and it will assist her in informing Edward about his history, which he is does not know
Yvonne Battle casts the characters richly and shows you the relationships formed between them, especially between Spring and her sister Tempe in the course of the story. The relationship between the two sisters cannot be separated even by death.

The author includes some articles from newspapers, making the story an engaging fictional narrative and also givi0ng it an authentic feel. The story portrays the theme of motherhood by showing far one should and can go to give protection to her child and the difference that lies between an adoptee and birth mother.
The second part of the story examines the history of slaves in America from the 1840s to 1860s. The author brings out the slave traders though the newspapers showing how events pass in the slave hostages as written by the headline writers. The author shows the real world behind the stories in the papers about the victims of the slave trade.

Spring informs Edward of their family’s distressing history about the suffering they went through in the slave industry. The story begins with Ella decides to use a shortcut route when she is caught by Walker, a slave master, who is looking for a young black lady.

To her surprise, Walker takes her to the breeding department now that his family is thought to have been cursed including, his animals, crops, and slaves. They all had become sterile and no longer multiply again as they used to before the curse was cast upon him.

Shortly after, Ella is almost assaulted by James, who is a black male slave on the farm who is also forced to do the act. Walker had instructed James to test whether Ella is infected with any disease after which he confirms that she is infected. They have to prove whether she is tainted and if not, she can help them in breaking the curse of abortions and failed pregnancies in his farm.

We see other slaves in walker’s farm, especially Mama skins, a midwife and Agnes her adopted daughter and the only child who survived in the farm. Agnes and Ella have a good relationship with James and the hints on the truth about the sterility and the decision made to the slaves as individuals and as a community. Agnes’s mother heals Ella of her disease slaves try to protect their loved ones and prevent other people from growing up under the same conditions as them.
As the story continues, we see the relationship between Ella and her sister Tempe and how Edward came to existence. The author shows how the truth about slaves that we are sometimes not told. Although Tempe died some years back, we still get to understand her better as a character in the story. Spring’s considers her real in her mind as the people around her.

Through the flashbacks in the story, we see Tempe explaining to Spring what happened to Edward and later understand the similarity in the patterns of happenings 24 years back. The author the decisions the black people are forced to and the injustice committed by their oppressors and the gap between the information on the newspaper and the reality of life. The story also shows the reluctance of the authorities to give the slaves protection and how surprising that they are sometimes the oppressors. The story features strong women and motherhood, which you will find yourself admiring as you read between the lines.