The Passing: Secrets of a Family

By James Harvest

Her family built a legacy on a lie. Uncovering the truth could destroy everything-including herself.

Amelia Stirling's identity is a carefully curated heirloom. For generations, the Stirlings have been a pillar of British society, their whiteness and wealth as unquestioned as the ancient portraits lining their manor walls. But a whimsical DNA test shatters this centuries-old narrative, revealing a devastating genetic truth: Lia is 18% Nigerian.

Overnight, her world becomes a beautiful, gilded cage. Her father's rage is volcanic, her mother's denial absolute, and her brother's threats are chillingly clear: Drop this, or be disowned. But the numbers on the screen are a siren's call Lia cannot ignore.

Driven by a need to know who she truly is, she unearths a forbidden family trunk, unravelling a trail of century-old letters and a haunting journal that leads from the Cotswolds to the American South. She discovers a history of passing, of a great-grandmother who disappeared into whiteness to survive, and a lineage deliberately severed. Her only ally is Kofi, a historian in America whose family holds the other half of her story-a story of a formidable Nigerian ancestress, Imani, who was not just a slave, but a powerful wise woman.

But some secrets are guarded by more than just silence. A mysterious, unnaturally cold carved box, sealed by forces beyond understanding, holds the key to Imani's final, furious act: a spiritual curse of justice placed upon the family, a demand for truth that has poisoned their bloodline for generations. As Lia digs deeper, she is stalked by modern threats and haunted by ancestral nightmares, caught between her family's desperate attempts to preserve their privilege and the terrifying, supernatural reckoning her search has awakened.

The Passing is a breathtaking, genre-bending tour de force-part gripping family saga, part heart-pounding suspense, and part profound spiritual journey. It's for anyone who has ever questioned where they come from, and for every reader captivated by novels like The Vanishing Half and Homegoing. This is a story about the ghosts we carry in our blood, the devastating cost of erasure, and the breathtaking power of a truth, once spoken, to shatter a world and rebuild it anew.

The truth was buried for a reason. Now, it's awake.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0FYGJYMST
• ISBN13: 9798272248541
• Release Date: October 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 172 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"