Join us Wednesday, April 30 from 6-7:30 p.m. for a presentation and book signing with author Rita Woods in conversation with Marcia Black at the Oak Park Public Library (834 Lake St., Oak Park, IL 60301). Rita Woods is the author of the new book The Edge of Yesterday, which releases on April 29, 2025.
This event is free and open to the public. Register online here. The Edge of Yesterday, as well as Rita Woods’ other titles, will be available to purchase courtesy of Book Beat. If you would like to reserve a signed copy of The Edge of Yesterday, please contact us.
For more information, email bookbeatorders@gmail.com, call 248-968-1190, or visit the Oak Park Public Library website.
The Edge of Yesterday is a haunting contemporary speculative novel about time travel and finding yourself from award-winning author Rita Woods.
Greer Coffey is a principal dancer with a renowned Harlem company. Sebastian Coffey is an architect with a prestigious Midtown firm. The Coffey’s are the ultimate dream couple — until their world completely unravels. After Greer develops a career ending neurologic disorder, she finds herself back in her hometown of Detroit. Angry, lonely, her marriage buckling under the strain, she takes to aimlessly wandering the city streets. One night, she stumbles through a vortex, a portal through time that transports her back into 1925 Detroit, where she meets a handsome, charming doctor.
Dr. Montgomery Gray is a member of Detroit’s Black Aristocracy, wealthy and connected to some of the most powerful Black families in the country. Detroit in 1925 is the beating heart of an industrial nation, but it is also a tinderbox of poor immigrants, Prohibition driven gang wars, and the Klan. As a member of the Talented Tenth, Monty is expected to be the tip of the spear in the fight for the Race, no matter the cost. Exhausted, frustrated, and longing to break free of expectations, he is stunned to find a woman from the future roaming Detroit’s Black Bottom.
Initially cautious, Monty and Greer slowly grow increasingly exhilarated with the visits. For Greer, 1925 offers an escape from the sorrow of her “real life,” and for Monty, the future that Greer lays before him is irresistible. But 2025 becomes gradually less and less recognizable, as each visit back through time causes increasing rips in the timeline. Ultimately, Greer finds herself trapped in 1925 and Monty is forced into a deadly confrontation that changes the trajectory of his life.
“In The Edge of Yesterday Rita Woods offers a fresh and unique take to time travel—and its possible reality bending ramifications. Somewhere between Octavia Butler’s Kindred and Blake Crouch’s Recursion, this story forces us to confront both the ghosts of our past and the unforeseen consequences of trying to alter it. Both gripping and haunting, I could not put this one down!”—P. Djèlí Clark, award-winning author of A Master of Djinn
“The Edge of Yesterday is a spinning, swirling novel of extraordinary imagination. Readers are transported back and forth in time in an unforgettable story of second chances and what ifs.”—Elizabeth Gonzalez James, author of The Bullet Swallower
“Expertly weaving together the past and the present, The Edge of Yesterday is a poignant tale about the dangers of pursuing a freedom one was never meant to have, and about surviving those consequences by holding onto the hope of tomorrow. A story so universal it transcends time.”—O.O. Sangoyomi, author of Masquerade
Rita Woods was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. She received a BS in Microbiology from Purdue University before graduating from Howard University College of Medicine. She completed her training at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska and served as Medical Director of a Wellness Center that provides care for members of one of the largest Trade Unions in the nation. Rita Woods has served as a member for American Writer’s Program (AWP) and as a mentor for Cinnamon Girls, an organization dedicated to encouraging creative writing in high school girls of color. Rita lives in suburban Chicago with her family, where she also serves as Trustee on her local library board. She loves magic, books, history, coffee and travel (favorite places to visit are cemeteries), not necessarily in that order. Rita Woods is the author of the award-winning novel Remembrance, and The Last Dreamwalker.
Marcia Black is a proud Detroiter, Black queer feminist archivist, memory worker, and abolitionist organizer. Marcia is an alum of Marygrove College where she received her Bachelors in Political Science and Sociology, and an alum of the University of Texas at Austin where she received a Masters of Arts in Womens and Gender Studies, and Masters of Science in Information Studies. She created and utilizes a Black queer feminist archival praxis in her work to ensure that Black people’s agency, Black cultural memory practices, and Black liberation are always honored and centered in preservation work. Her life’s work is to ignite and support the development of the archivist that exists within each one of us; and to preserve and share the histories of Black women, Black Detroit, and the Black radical tradition. Marcia is committed to Black liberation and believes that archiving and storytelling can be tools to get us there. She is the co-executive director of Black Bottom Archives.