A magnificent new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of An American Marriage-a novel about mothers and daughters, about friendship and sisterhood.
Kin is the kind of all-encompassing reading experience I’m always hoping to find- smart and funny.
ANN PATCHETT
A magnificent new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of An American Marriage-a novel that sparkles with wit, intelligence and deep feeling about two lifelong friends whose worlds collide in the face of a devastating tragedy.
Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbours since earliest childhood, but are fated to live starkly different lives.
Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother’s death, Vernice leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen for Atlanta, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and discovers a world of affluence, manners, aspiration and inequality.
Annie, abandoned by her mother as a child, and fixated on the idea of finding her, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, culminating in a battle for her life.
A novel about mothers and daughters, friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South, Kin is an exuberant, emotionally rich, unforgettable work from one of the brightest and most irresistible voices in contemporary fiction.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 368
Imprint: Penguin Books AU
Publication date: 24/02/2026

Kin
By Tayari Jones
Review by Renata
The bestselling author of An American Marriage brings the lives of two motherless girls in the American South vividly to life. Equally driven to find validation and identity, the paths of Niecy and Annie nevertheless diverge: one into struggle and poverty and the other to comparative opportunity and affluence. Jones's lyrical, sensuous writing skillfully evokes the fiercely loyal bond between two young women whose strengths and vulnerabilities leap off the page. A great choice for book clubs. For fans of James McBride, Toni Morrison and Mary Beth Keane.