Nominated 2015 NAACP Image Award Outstanding Literary Work - Debut Author
Winner 2015 Beverly Hills Book Award - Multicultural Fiction
Award Winner 2015 International Latino Book Award - Most Inspirational Fiction Book
Finalist Forward Reviews 2014 IndieFab Book of the Year Award - Multicultural Fiction
Serena is a Bermudan jazz singer whose mental health problems lead her to abandon her daughter "Artie." Artie's anger and curiosity eventually drive her to seek out Serena's younger lover Jamie L'Heureux a jazz superstar. The spirit of Charles Mingus thrums throughout the story as these two women tangle in the complicated mess that is a mother-daughter relationship.
Toni Ann Johnson won the Humanitas Prize and the Christopher Award for her teleplay Ruby Bridges the ABC movie and true story of the young girl who integrated the New Orleans Public School system. Johnson won a second Humanitas Prize for her Showtime teleplay Crown Heights about the 1991 Crown Heights Riots. Johnson has written a number of dance related projects most notably the pilot for Save The Last Dance and the feature film Step Up 2: The Streets. Her stage play Gramercy Park is Closed to the Public was produced in Los Angeles by The Fountainhead Theater Company and in New York by The New York Stage and Film Company. Her essays have been published in the Los Angeles Times and her short fiction has appeared in The Elohi Gadugi Journal Sprout Magazine The Emerson Review and is forthcoming in Soundings Review. Johnson holds a BFA from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles.
"Toni Ann Johnson has done such an impressive job of creating beautifully flawed characters that I was unable to stop thinking about them and their incredible journeys long after I'd finished reading the book."- Eriq LaSalle author of Laws of Depravity
"Magical musical and mesmerizing Remedy is as remarkable as it is unforgettable. Highly recommended."- Jeff Stetson author of Blood on the Leaves
"This is a journey of passion-no matter where the characters or storylines take us like creeks and rivers they always arrive at the great ocean. Of passion. Toni Ann Johnson's novel will open your heart."-Almaluz Villanueva author of Song of the Golden Scorpion
"In soul-stirring rhythms and beguiling tones Toni Ann Johnson illustrates how despite betrayal divergent paths and irreparable damage despite saying we are done forever mothers and daughters are locked in the formation of each other."-Kate Maruyama author of Harrogate
"Readers will find themselves deeply involved in this significant and meaningful novel destined to be a classic."-Leonard Chang author of Crossings
