Author Talk: Yellow Wife | Sadeqa Johnson in conversation with Victoria Christopher Murray

“A fully immersive, intricately crafted story inspired by the pages of history. In Pheby, Sadeqa Johnson has created a woman whose struggle to survive and to protect the ones she loves will have readers turning the pages as fast as their fingers can fly. Simply enthralling.” —Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours

Called "wholly engrossing" by New York Times bestselling author Kathleen Grissom, this harrowing story follows an enslaved woman forced to barter love and freedom while living in the most infamous slave jail in Virginia.

Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mother’s position as the estate’s medicine woman and cherished by the Master’s sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world.

She’d been promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Pheby is forced to leave the only home she has ever known. She unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil’s Half Acre, a jail in Richmond, Virginia, where the enslaved are broken, tortured, and sold every day. There, Pheby is exposed not just to her Jailer’s cruelty but also to his contradictions. To survive, Pheby will have to outwit him, and she soon faces the ultimate sacrifice.

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Sadeqa Johnson is the award-winning author of four novels. Her accolades include the National Book Club Award, the Phillis Wheatley Book Award, and the USA Best Book Award for Best Fiction. She is a Kimbilio Fellow, former board member of the James River Writers, and a Tall Poppy Writer. Originally from Philadelphia, she currently lives near Richmond, Virginia, with her husband and three children. To learn more, visit SadeqaJohnson.net.

Victoria Christopher Murray is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of more than 30 novels, including the New York Times Instant Best Seller, The Personal Librarian. She has been writing novels full time for over twenty years.

A native New Yorker, Victoria Christopher Murray attended Hampton University in Virginia where she majored in Communication Disorders. After graduating, Victoria attended New York University’s Stern Business School where she received her MBA in Marketing.

Victoria spent ten years in Corporate America before she tested her entrepreneurial spirit. She opened a Financial Services Agency for Aegon, USA where she managed the number one division for nine consecutive years. However, Victoria always dreamed of writing and in 1997, she pursued her dream.

Victoria originally self-published her first novel, Temptation and in 2000, Time Warner published that novel. Temptation made numerous bestsellers lists and remained on the Essence bestsellers list for nine consecutive months. In 2001, Victoria received her first NAACP Image Award nomination for Temptation.

Over her career, Victoria has received numerous awards including the Phyllis Wheatley Trailblazer Award, eleven African American Literary Awards and five NAACP Image Award nominations. In 2016, she won the Image Award for Outstanding Literature for her social commentary novel, Stand Your Ground.

All seven novels in Victoria’s Seven Deadly Sins series were optioned to become movies on Lifetime. The first two, Lust and Envy aired in April, 2021 and the next two, Greed and Wrath are in preproduction and will air in Spring, 2022. The movies were produced by TD Jakes, Shaun Robinson and Derrick Williams. Another one of Victoria’s novels, The Ex Files, has also been optioned to become a movie and will begin filming in early 2022.

With almost two million books in print, Victoria is one of the country’s top African American contemporary authors.