A stunning new novel focusing on the lives of two extraordinary women, from the celebrated author of the international bestseller THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES.

Sarah Grimke is the middle daughter. The one her mother calls 'difficult' and her father calls 'remarkable'. On Sarah's eleventh birthday, Hetty 'Handful' Grimke is taken from the slave quarters she shares with her mother, wrapped in lavender ribbons, and presented to Sarah as a gift.

Sarah knows that what she does next will unleash a world of trouble. She also knows that she cannot accept control over another human's life as a birthday gift. And so, indeed, the trouble begins ...

A powerful, sweeping novel, inspired by real events, and set in the American Deep South of the early nineteenth century, THE INVENTION OF WINGS evokes a world of shocking contrasts, of beauty and ugliness, and of righteous people living daily with cruelty they fail to recognise. Above all, it celebrates the power of friendship and sisterhood against all the odds.