Black Dynasty: The saga of the Stone and Porter families of Kentucky, as told to Geoffrey Hindley by Loretta Stone Paperback – 14 Sept. 2012

Geoffrey Hindley is mainly an historian of the medieval era. He has written highly readable accounts of the Anglo-Saxon era, Saladdin, the Crusades, Magna Carta and the Age of Caxton (amongst others). He writes with a passion that informs and enlivens the reader's mind. This time he has turned to fiction. The setting is America moving from the deep south to Chicago and New York and post bellum to the FDR era. The informative enlivening and readable passion endures. Any reader would become involved in the trials and tribulations of the characters. I recommend it highly.

This book describes the world of aspiring black American families through the 1870s to the end of the Great Depression: engaging the reader as both a gripping novel and scholarly social-history. The story is acted out against the sights and sounds, events, social trends, and atmosphere of the times. Those who have read Hindley's books on history (I just finished his book on the Crusades) will expect a lot - and wont be disappointed.