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Table of Contents
About The Book
A Black couple leaves their downtown Chicago condo for a new suburban subdivision, only to find themselves at the center of a maelstrom in this gripping page-turner from the award-winning author of Three Girls from Bronzeville.
Tired of the daily drama in his emergency room, Dr. Langdon Blaque is in search of a place where he can leave the world behind. He loves his job and has no delusions about the suburbs being perfect, but he wants peace and quiet. His wife Josephine, a lawyer, grew up listening to her father’s stories about the Jim Crow South, and sundown towns. She prefers the city. Still, she agrees to move with the caveat that they stay for a year and reassess.
The tight-knit, predominantly white group of neighbors in Majestic Hills initially welcomes them with open arms. But beneath the veneer of privileged harmony, tensions simmer. When a horrifying crime rocks the community, the illusion of safety is shattered, and Josephine and Langdon find themselves at the heart of a brewing storm that pits neighbor against neighbor, exposes deeply ingrained prejudices, and threatens to implode into violence.
As their experiment in suburban living ticks toward the one-year mark, the Blaques are pushed to a breaking point. Can they find a way to make a home in Majestic Hills? Or has the move put their future, their marriage, and even their safety in jeopardy?
Tired of the daily drama in his emergency room, Dr. Langdon Blaque is in search of a place where he can leave the world behind. He loves his job and has no delusions about the suburbs being perfect, but he wants peace and quiet. His wife Josephine, a lawyer, grew up listening to her father’s stories about the Jim Crow South, and sundown towns. She prefers the city. Still, she agrees to move with the caveat that they stay for a year and reassess.
The tight-knit, predominantly white group of neighbors in Majestic Hills initially welcomes them with open arms. But beneath the veneer of privileged harmony, tensions simmer. When a horrifying crime rocks the community, the illusion of safety is shattered, and Josephine and Langdon find themselves at the heart of a brewing storm that pits neighbor against neighbor, exposes deeply ingrained prejudices, and threatens to implode into violence.
As their experiment in suburban living ticks toward the one-year mark, the Blaques are pushed to a breaking point. Can they find a way to make a home in Majestic Hills? Or has the move put their future, their marriage, and even their safety in jeopardy?
Reading Group Guide
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Topics and Questions for Discussion
Langdon’s desire to move to Majestic Hills is at odds with his wife’s desire to stay in the city. Do you think their compromise is fair? How does compromise show up in other ways in their marriage throughout the novel?
What were your first impressions of Majestic Hills and its inhabitants, and how did those views change over time?
Why do you think the author chose to give her protagonists the last name Blaque?
Do you think it’s possible to build a community truly free from conflict, or are tensions between neighbors like the ones the Blaques experience in some way inevitable?
Discuss Josephine’s relationship with Lonnie. How does Lonnie affect Josephine’s view of Majestic Hills? In what ways do you think the two women are similar, and how are they different?
What are some things the Blaques experience in Majestic Hills that would be red flags for you in a new neighborhood? Was there a point at which you would have decided to leave, if you were them?
Compare Langdon’s childhood to Wade’s and discuss their mirrored uses of the phrase “troubled youth.” Did you see Wade as a troubled youth? Why or why not?
Why do you think Wade took the fall for Benny? Was he right to do so?
Recall this quote from the trial: “One of our greatest deficiencies is that far too few of us can relate to or understand a person whose life has delivered him to a moment when he believes his only recourse is to wreak devastation.” Do you agree or disagree? How does this play out between the characters in the novel?
Do you think Josephine was justified in trying to keep the shooting a secret from her husband?
What do you think the Blaques decide to do at the end of the novel? What would you do in their place?
Enhance Your Book Club
Read Dawn Turner’s memoir Three Girls from Bronzeville. Do you see any similarities between real people in the author’s life and characters in Majestic Hills?
Imagine you are Josephine or Langdon at the beginning of the story and debate staying in Chicago versus moving to Majestic Hills.
Create a map of Majestic Hills and the Grand Vistas, including the Blaques’ neighborhood, the One-Stop shop, and more.
Langdon’s desire to move to Majestic Hills is at odds with his wife’s desire to stay in the city. Do you think their compromise is fair? How does compromise show up in other ways in their marriage throughout the novel?
What were your first impressions of Majestic Hills and its inhabitants, and how did those views change over time?
Why do you think the author chose to give her protagonists the last name Blaque?
Do you think it’s possible to build a community truly free from conflict, or are tensions between neighbors like the ones the Blaques experience in some way inevitable?
Discuss Josephine’s relationship with Lonnie. How does Lonnie affect Josephine’s view of Majestic Hills? In what ways do you think the two women are similar, and how are they different?
What are some things the Blaques experience in Majestic Hills that would be red flags for you in a new neighborhood? Was there a point at which you would have decided to leave, if you were them?
Compare Langdon’s childhood to Wade’s and discuss their mirrored uses of the phrase “troubled youth.” Did you see Wade as a troubled youth? Why or why not?
Why do you think Wade took the fall for Benny? Was he right to do so?
Recall this quote from the trial: “One of our greatest deficiencies is that far too few of us can relate to or understand a person whose life has delivered him to a moment when he believes his only recourse is to wreak devastation.” Do you agree or disagree? How does this play out between the characters in the novel?
Do you think Josephine was justified in trying to keep the shooting a secret from her husband?
What do you think the Blaques decide to do at the end of the novel? What would you do in their place?
Enhance Your Book Club
Read Dawn Turner’s memoir Three Girls from Bronzeville. Do you see any similarities between real people in the author’s life and characters in Majestic Hills?
Imagine you are Josephine or Langdon at the beginning of the story and debate staying in Chicago versus moving to Majestic Hills.
Create a map of Majestic Hills and the Grand Vistas, including the Blaques’ neighborhood, the One-Stop shop, and more.
About The Author
Dawn Turner
Dawn Turner is an award-winning journalist and novelist. A former columnist and reporter for the Chicago Tribune, Turner spent a decade and a half writing about race, politics, and people whose stories are often dismissed and ignored. Turner, who served as a 2017 and 2018 juror for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary, has written commentary for The Washington Post, PBS NewsHour, CBS Sunday Morning News show, NPR’s Morning Edition show, the Chicago Tonight show, and elsewhere. She has covered national presidential conventions, as well as Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential election and inauguration. Turner has been a regular commentator for several national and international news programs, and has reported from around the world in countries such as Australia, China, France, and Ghana. She spent the 2014–2015 school year as a Nieman Journalism fellow at Harvard University. In 2018, she served as a fellow and journalist-in-residence at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. Turner is the author of two novels, Only Twice I’ve Wished for Heaven and An Eighth of August. In 2018, she established the Dawn M. Turner and Kim D. Turner Endowed Scholarship in Media at her alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Product Details
- Publisher: Scribner (August 4, 2026)
- Length: 336 pages
- ISBN13: 9781668049334
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Raves and Reviews
"Turner excels at creating atmosphere and a sense of place with exquisite details . . . The writing is evocative and well-paced throughout . . . Readers won’t want to miss this fast-moving, absorbing tale of suburbia, where things may be more dangerous than they look on the surface." -Library Journal
“Turner offers sharp commentary on social inequality and liberal hypocrisy…” -Publishers Weekly
"An effective blend of allegory and harsh reality, this social drama grows stronger at each turn.” -Kirkus Reviews
“Majestic Hills is a wry and wicked tale of suburban discontent, a thrill of a read that grapples with some very big ideas—about class, race, violence, and the inequities on which so much of American life is predicated.” –Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind
"Majestic Hills is a novel of legacy, identity, and the ways that race and class affect even the most intimate relationships. I was riveted by this story of a picture-perfect new community and what truths were roiling just beneath the surface." - Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes
"This novel from lyrical talent Dawn Turner, could not be more timely or spot on in its portrait of a utopic suburban neighborhood that becomes a simmering cauldron of fault-lines, tensions, divisions, and good intentions gone awry. It asks the questions: what does it mean to be a true community and what does it take for it to fall apart? In today's America, where flashpoints and divisions abound, the lens of this novel proves pressing and urgent. Majestic Hills, with its thought-provoking observations, strong emotional pull, and cast of well-drawn characters, has all the ingredients to be an absolutely *ideal* book club read." –Christine Pride, bestselling coauthor of We Are Not Like Them
“Expansive, tender, and gripping, this deftly-told story about eroding neighborly relations and the sinister secrets behind an idyllic suburban neighborhood builds to an explosive conclusion. I was riveted.” –Susie Yang, New York Times bestselling author of White Ivy
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