This Bitter Earth / Bernice McFadden / 276 pages / St. Louis Challenge

This is the sequel to Sugar, which unfortunately I have not read. I felt throughout that I had entered a story in the middle and needed more backstory. When Sugar Lacey's care givers die in rapid succession in St. Louis, Sugar returns to Arkansas to confront the truth of her birth, to meet her father, and to attempt to deal with the pain of the past that still haunts her. The tale is replete with violence, injustice, prejudice, and the deplorable state of affairs in the mid-1900's South.