Calling Me Home

A moving love story inspired by a true story and perfect for fans of The Help

In a time of hate, would you stand up for love?

Shalerville, Kentucky, 1939. A world where black maids and handymen are trusted to raise white children and tend to white houses, but from which they are banished after dark.

Sixteen-year-old Isabelle McAllister, born into wealth and privilege, finds her ordered life turned upside down when she becomes attracted to Robert, the ambitious black son of her family’s housekeeper. Before long Isabelle and Robert are crossing extraordinary, dangerous boundaries and falling deeply in love.

Many years later, eighty-nine-year-old Isabelle will travel from her home in Arlington, Texas, to Ohio for a funeral. With Isabelle is her hairstylist and friend, Dorrie Curtis – a black single mother with her own problems. Along the way, Isabelle will finally reveal to Dorrie the truth of her painful past: a tale of forbidden love, the consequences of which will resound for decades . . .

‘If Julie Kibler's novel Calling Me Home were a young woman, her grandmother would be To Kill a Mockingbird, her sister would be The Help and her cousin would be The Notebook. But even with such iconic relatives, Calling Me Home stands on her own’ Wiley Cash, New York Times bestselling author of A Land More Kind Than Home

‘Julie Kibler’s writing is so wise and assured. I laughed out loud in places and had tears in my eyes as I turned the last page’ Diane Chamberlain

'If you liked The Help by Kathryn Stockett, you’ll absolutely love Calling Me Home' Red magazine