Fifth Born II: The Hundredth Turtle

Fifth Born II: The Hundredth Turtle is set in both 1980's rural Mississippi, and New York's Harlem. The novel tells the story of adult siblings Odessa Lacey and Lamont Blackburn. The two are estranged early in childhood by the lies and myths born of family pain, but become emotionally reliant on each other for a sense of family. Following Lamont's death from complications associated with the AIDS virus. Odessa is faced with her own grieving, and with fulfilling Lamont's request for connection with their siblings. The novel's arc takes the reader over the complicated waters of family estrangement due to incest and homophobia. These difficult subjects are traversed melodically and lyrically, landing the reader in the redemptive faith that adult survivors of abuse and their families have the potential to overcome obstacles set against them at birth.

ZELDA LOCKHART is author of the award winning novel Fifth Born, which was a 2002 Barnes & Noble Discovery selection and won a finalist award for debut fiction from the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Foundation. Her second novel Cold Running Creek won a 2008 Honor Fiction Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Ms. Lockhart holds the honor of the 2010 Piedmont Laureate for Literature in North Carolina. Her other works of fiction, poetry and essays can be found in a variety of anthologies, journals and magazines. Ms. Lockhart lives in North Carolina and continues to lecture and facilitate a variety of workshops that empower adults and children to self-define through writing. She is currently compiling an anthology of short stories which chronicles the lives of nine elders from nine nations. She welcomes visits to her website: www.zeldalockhart.com