This Ain’t No Promised Land: A Novel

2025 Christianity Today Book Award Winner
2024 Foreword Indies Gold Winner
2024 ECPA Top Shelf Book Award Winner

“With stellar storytelling skills, Tina Shelton reminds us that while love isn’t always enough to erase the hurts, it’s the only way to survive them. A powerful read!” —Julie Cantrell, New York Times & USA Today best-selling author of Perennials

When her husband dies, Charlotte can’t face the things she’s done that could tear her family apart. So she drops a goodbye letter in the cookie jar and flees south to escape everything—her life, her three daughters, the mistakes she’s made, and the secrets eating her alive.

Now Gracey and her sisters are alone on Chicago’s South Side with nothing but their home and belongings. They’re doing everything they can to stay together, but young teens aren’t meant to parent themselves. Their close-knit Black community gathers around them to keep them fed and clothed with the utilities on, but that’s not enough to fix the damage of abandonment.

Hundreds of miles away, Charlotte is struggling to keep her own head above water. She’s made a close friend who talks to her about God in a way Charlotte’s never heard before. But when her demons catch up to her, the shaky peace she tried to build shatters. Even if she’s able to find the courage to embrace motherhood again, will it be enough to save the family she left behind?

“Deeply evocative of The Women of Brewster Place, Shelton’s storytelling masterfully draws us into the landscapes of place and heart, demonstrating that the thread of love is what finally saves us, even if we don’t know why.” —Dr. Stephen G. Ray Jr., former president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion