Burnt Pot Island, 2021 is my 1st novel. Night's a Shadow, Day's a Shine, about a Geechee mother and daughter on Skidaway Island during Reconstruction was published June 2025. 

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"Karen Dove Barr's second novel, Night's a Shadow, Day's a Shine, about Geechee life during the Reconstruction following the Civil War, is the perfect sequel to Karen Dove Barr's first novel, Burnt Pot Island. A historian with an incredible talent for personalizing one of the most difficult periods in our history, she brings alive the many difficulties experienced in the past by those seeking to make their way on beautiful Skidaway Island, Georgia , where she now still lives." ROSEMARY DANIELL, author of Fatal Flowers, On Sex, Sin, and Suicide in the Deep South.

 

"NIght's a Shadow, Day's a Shine is a moving story about struggle, heartache, and moments of beauty on a secluded island plantation in Coastal Georgia. It immerses readers in the rhythms and rituals of Geechee life in the years leading to Emancipation." ALEXIA FERNANDEZ CAMPBELL, Pulitzer Prize finalist, Investigative Reporter

 

"An epic work! Dicie's story, where fear ruled the day posits fiction. Not taught in Savannah schools, Karen Dove Barr's rich research about slavery, reveals a dark side of history on America becoming a nation. I believe it provides a vivid description of enslaved Africans freed in 1865 living on plantations on Skidaway." LINDA BROWN, Owner ALPHA Consulting and Civil Mediation Service.

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Carter Schwonke, author of A Good Day to Start, says "In the haunting coastal waters and marshes of early twentieth century Georgia are the beautiful but devastating voices and perspectives of three generations of slave descendants. Told with a deep understanding of the region's natural beauty and dark legacy, Burnt Pot Island weaves together the Geechee struggle. Opportunities are scarce, degrading, or dangerous, and progress is slow, yet on every atmospheric page, the characters' resiliency and certainty propel and shape their success story.

Rosemary Daniell, author of Fatal Flowers and The Murderous Sky, says, "Burnt Pot Island vividly depicts a time and a place in the deep South when racism was in full swing, survival was hard, and compromises had to be made, taking us into a time and place like few books about the region. Readers of this moving and unique story won't quickly forget this author's fine work, and like me, will look forward to whatever she writes next."