ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brionni Nwosu is a joyful creative based in the musical city of Nashville, where she enjoys making memories with her husband and three children and crafting compelling stories to share with the world. An educator by training, she’s spent over a decade supporting students and teaching teachers how to teach, all while shaping her stories on the side. She was recognised as a 2021 We Need Diverse Books Mentee, working with the esteemed Rajani LaRocca. The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter is her debut novel.

The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter

Brionni Nwosu

www.hodderscape.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 2025 by Hodderscape

An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton Limited

An Hachette UK company

Copyright © Electric Postcard Entertainment, Inc. 2025

Published by arrangement with Electric Postcard Entertainment.

Cover illustration © Silja Goetz 2025

Cover design by Natalie Chen

Author photograph © Brionni Nwosu

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

ebook ISBN 978 1 399 74633 5

Hardback ISBN 978 1 399 74631 1

Trade Paperback ISBN 978 1 399 74632 8

Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

www.hodderscape.co.uk

For Sam, who believed. For Mom, who believed first.

THE BARGAIN

Savannah—June 1784

PROLOGUE

Death kept his pace on the lane to Hampstead House—gait steady, limbs just the right amount of loose.

The time was marked by the bright June sun hanging high overhead, beaming down on the tender green cotton shoots, the first true leaves bursting through. Three vultures circled lazily on the horizon, black slashes on the blue sky, as they spiraled lower toward their prey, doing their job—as was he.

He’d materialized a moment before, appearing alongside the gutted road etched with wagon wheel tracks and the hooves of many beasts, on his way to collect his next soul.

His deeply bronzed skin glistened in the light, sleek muscles stretching, as they had on the body of his last collection, taken from a fazenda outside Rio de Janeiro. That man had been beautiful before an unwieldy load of sugarcane crushed him.

Death had admired his form and taken it as his own as he arrived in the teeming, swampy marshland outside Savannah, Georgia, falling into step and his duty. Trying on bodies had become a habit, all stemming from his desire to understand.

Though he was far from human, his work consisted entirely of contact with the species. From the start, they’d perplexed him. Most were messy, chaotic, and cruel, so, he thought, if he could assume their shape, perhaps he might better grasp their perspective—find some reason for their barbarity toward themselves and most life on Earth. Irrational in the end, for the practice yielded no answers, at least none that satisfied.

But the custom turned to habit, and so he’d continued ever since.

He paused along the edge of the road, no stranger to these parts. Typhoid and yellow fever had done their rounds this summer, spreading stealthily from the swamp into fresh water, creeping into the white wooden main house, claiming first the master and his new wife before slipping into the cabins that dotted the surrounding fields, each ringed with a small garden. Death had collected souls from each structure, by ones and in twos, leaving neat rows of red-humped dirt to mark each earthly resting place.

Now someone else’s allotted hour was at hand.

It was always at hand for someone, somewhere.

That was the problem he’d been considering for some time, and he’d finally landed on a solution.

It was perfect.

He needed only to think of a suitable method of execution.

A clatter of hooves interrupted his thoughts as a wagon rattled toward him, the wheels churning through the thick mud, a pitiful brown mare staggering, straining against her load, her jutting ribs heaving as if each breath might be her last.

The driver, Murray, ignored the beast’s struggle and flicked his crop; a new lash leaked red on the mare’s hindquarters. He hunched over the reins, a brown rifle perched by his feet, glazed eyes shifting, scanning the empty road ahead. Death watched him passively, knowing of the deep and unabating infection that lurked within him.

Soon, the spasms would start, pain that would tear at his insides, making him wish for a swift end to his misery. Murray would find it at the end of the week, jerking and gasping for air in a pool of his own blood and vomit.

Murray did not know his fate as he snapped the crop again, urging the poor beast forward—his jaw clenched, his left hand twitching.

His cargo would fare no better.

A man called Scipio lay in the wagon bed, huddled in the sawdust, his broad brown hands and feet rigged in ropes, eyes closed. A gash on his head bled freely as angry welts marched up his arms, his white canvas shirt cut to ribbons, red blooming across it like a field of summer roses, guaranteeing that Death would collect him, too, before the day was through.

Death watched as the wagon rattled along its miserable way.

A feeling ticked through him—hot and rough—knowing what their imminent demise meant for him.

More work.

Always another soul to fetch and ferry.

Time and again.

For eternity.

Small plagues seemed to keep them in check, ushering the masses to the afterlife without much intervention from him, but then the humans always came back, more than ever, loud, pushy, conniving, and horrible—forever killing each other off with their unending wars, filth, and pestilence, their crimes replete with cruelty and violence.

Even now, they were inventing new ways to die.

Cannons.

Muskets.

Amputations.

How many men had he collected from surgeons’ tents that stank of rotting meat as the surgeon hacked off limbs? How many from the battlefield? What used to be dozens of souls had become hundreds, all at once. One would think gathering them in batches would make it easier, but the work never ceased.

Life squandered for no good reason.

Wouldn’t it be better to scrub it all clean? Death wondered. One final plague to rid the world of them once and for all.

A lot of effort up front, but surely the world would be better for it. Humans could be formed again over time and improved. Not by him, of course. But it could make his job a bit better. As far as Death could see, no redeemable one existed in the bunch.

He considered his plan as he turned down the familiar lane, his steps silent and sure, with only the buzz of blackflies and the whine of mosquitoes for company.

All other life had fled at his arrival. The birds stopped their chatter, and the white-tailed deer turned, leaping into the thick brush. The gray rabbits burrowed deeper in their dens, and the fox squirrels darted for the tallest treetops. They needn’t have feared him, for his dominion was over human souls affected by age, accident, or disease, while other beings were tasked with collecting animal souls. Only the lone mountain lion, shaded in the tree’s low branches, didn’t flee, for he, too, was a purveyor of death.

He’d almost reached the cabin to enact his latest reaping of the day when a tingle pricked at the edge of his awareness, sharp and keen. He slowed, scanning the land, seeing only the wave of low green branches bending in the wind.

Nevertheless, he was being watched, and not because he’d decided, as he did on rare occasions, to show himself to a human.

He winked out, slipping into the endless in-between, searching for the source.

A woman, on the young end of the human spectrum, stood not fifteen feet away, her body hidden by a wide gray oak, her eyes trained on where he used to be. He eased closer, studying her.

Sickness clung to her, scented through her sweat, marked by the red rash scattered on her neck and face. Her golden-brown skin was pale, several shades lighter than his own. She squinted at him with keen eyes, grown glassy with fever, as she held herself still. He watched her realize he had disappeared from the road, her gaze darting to see where he’d gone.

He cocked his head.

Most humans were blind to him, only catching a glimpse while on the edge of their death. He preferred it that way. She behaved differently altogether. His ennui melted away as his curiosity grew, his questions abounding.

How can she see me? Why can she? More importantly, what does she see?

The woman was his next soul to collect. Although the time of her reaping was near, he found himself . . . reluctant to take her. Surely he could spare the time to learn a bit more.

He shifted behind her, back into view. “Hiding from me, Nella?”

She jumped, twisting and falling back against the tree’s rough bark, her honey-colored chest heaving. Her homespun dress gaped at her shoulders, exposing a heart-shaped birthmark and the telltale reddened spots that crept across her collarbone and neck. A kerchief covered her thick black curls, which, slick with sweat, had escaped their binding. He noted that her pulse quickened at the use of her name, but she didn’t run or look away. He sensed no true fear, which conjured even more curiosity.

“Mama always said there’s no use hiding from Death—but best keep out his way when he’s about his business.” Her voice was quiet but rough, made worse by coughing.

“Your mama was a smart woman,” he murmured.

“If you’re here, I expect I’ll see her soon,” Nella said, her meaning plain.

“Smart woman,” he repeated, this time a compliment.

She trembled, even as she tried to stand tall. “You’re different than I thought you would be.”

He considered the statement. “Different, how?”

She paused, breathing with effort. “I saw you take the master’s littlest baby, Maybelle. You were a redheaded woman dressed in green muslin standing on the big porch. Then, another time, when you took Missus Carter’s sister in the front tearoom, you had skin the color of day-old corn bread. But I knew they were both you because your edges are hard. Almost black.”

Death nodded, struck. Never had someone seen him so plainly. “Is that what you see now?”

She nodded, pointing to his form. “I see it plain as day.”

“Have you always?”

Her eyes pierced him, the brown vibrant in the slant of light through the tree branches. “I’ve always seen you. Mama saw you too. Never knew why, but I reckon those sorts of things weren’t up to us. Must be God given.”

An unfamiliar sensation twitched in his chest. This was not the regular begging of the sickroom, the damned pleading for him not to take them to their final resting places as he claimed their souls. This was simply conversation. “You believe in God?”

“Sometimes.” She gazed off in the distance.

“Come, let’s get you ready.” He held out his arm, firm and dark brown, as real to her as it was invisible to others.

They didn’t speak as they reached her low cabin, situated at the far back of the plantation, edged by dense forest and brambles. The cabin’s condition was poor—even by human standards—with rough-cut windows providing little light and poor ventilation. A shoddily hewn door that gaped, somehow managing to both trap the heat of the day and allow in the creeping chill of night. Wooden wattle peeked through the rough white tabby walls as jagged bits of oyster shell glinted in the dim light. A crude fireplace sat at one end, a pair of lumpy pallets at the other, next to a small stand holding a washbasin, a pitcher, and two chamber pots, the fetid smell of sick rising in the cabin’s thick heat. A square wooden table, two chairs, and an assortment of pans and dry goods comprised the rest of the cabin’s contents.

He helped her to the closest pallet, where a small book rested on the stained cloth, its cover bright yellow. He moved it and settled her down. Once she lay back, it was as if all the strength had fled her body. He sat in one of the spindly chairs, surveying her.

“Where is everyone?” he asked, more for conversation than anything else.

“Once the overseer took sick, they moved everyone healthy to Master’s brother’s home and boarded up the Big House.”

“Why didn’t you go?”

She gestured to her skin, mottled with rash. Her eyes gleamed with fever; she had sweat through her dress. He’d seen humans abandon their young for less.

“So, what now?” she wheezed. Blood covered her hand where she’d coughed.

He considered her question. “I take your soul, and we transcend this place.”

She nodded, accepting the fact. “Will it hurt?”

“You’ll leave this pain behind.”

“That would be good. It’s all I’ve known.”

She reached for her book, and Death handed it to her, first reading the title.

Robinson Crusoe.

“Is that important to you?”

She nodded. “My father—I mean, Master Carter—read from it when I was small. I can read it myself now, having listened to his stepdaughter Mary’s lessons.” She dragged it up to her chest. “It brings a bit of comfort.”

“You can’t take it with you.” Although people were always trying. Gold, jewels, papers, and once even a prized pig. Worldly goods held no value in the next place. He nodded toward the book. “What’s it about?”

He didn’t particularly care, but he wasn’t ready to collect her—not yet.

She wiped her hand on her skirt, the blood smearing. “A man who goes on an adventure and sees all the sights to see. He is made a slave and then finds himself free.”

Death examined her. “Is that what you would do?”

She nodded adamantly, wincing at the effort. “I’d give anything to see the world. My brother and I dreamed about it when we were young. How we’d leave our old place and travel. Silas was so sure there must be more to life than this.” She gestured weakly to the rough, craggy wood floor where she made her home. A coughing fit filled her lungs, wet and thick.

It wouldn’t be long now.

By rights, he should take her and ferry her soul, but . . . he found he didn’t want to. All he wanted to do was carry on speaking with her.

“Tell me, where would you go if you could?” he asked, delaying the inevitable.

“Away from here.”

“Anywhere more specific?”

She was quiet as she considered the question, probably having never been asked anything like it before. “I’d want to go everywhere. Places I’ve only heard about, like Paris or London or where my mother said her father was from. I’d like to see the world and its wondrous things. I’d like to be free,” she said, her breathing ragged.

Death shrugged, slightly miffed at her answer. “You’re not missing much. Places are places and humans are humans, everywhere they live.”

“I don’t think so. I want to believe there is a better sort—at least better than I’ve experienced,” she challenged.

Death snorted. “I can assure you they’re not.” His mind wandered to the men he’d seen south of here who had set whole towns on fire to dominate those they thought inferior, leaving only destruction in their wake. Nothing about those men was worth saving, but it hadn’t been their time. When it was, Death would have something special for them, indeed. They would learn that no one was crueler than he.

“What about me? What have I ever done to anybody?”

Death’s gaze swept over her, studying her like he was seeing the core of who she was, deep in her marrow. It was true. She’d been born in bondage during this godforsaken time. Her soul, for all its ill treatment, was still pure.

This fact didn’t fit Death’s plans, so he conveniently ignored it.

“You are only one person. Millions more are wretches, waiting for their chance to inflict themselves on other humans. Living is more trouble than it’s worth.”

Her mouth fell open with shock. “How can you say that? Of anyone, you should know how precious life is.”

“It’s because I know that I am an authority.”

Nella shook her head forcefully. “Then you don’t understand it at all. Life, I mean. I’ve seen my fair share of trouble and terribleness. But Mama always reminded me there’s still love to be had, even in humans, even in this terrible place.” No doubt she meant the plantation she and others had been forced to labor on. “There’s family . . . even if they’re gone. There’s the people we love and who love us . . . even if it’s all just memories. There’s the things we leave behind. It’s the only way my people survived this hell. Holding on to dawn. All you have to do is pay attention.”

He quirked his eyebrows at her spirit. Even while dying, even in the face of all the horror she’d endured, she was willing to disagree with Death himself. “So, I can’t see people’s goodness?” he asked. “And you . . . could show it to me? Is that what you’re saying?”

Her eyes sharpened with clarity. “Let me live—and do this life over again. I’ll show you. It’s all around us.”

Death scoffed, but her proposition surprised him. She hadn’t lived long enough to see the fallacy of her words. If she’d existed as long as he had, she’d see this was the only conclusion. She, born enslaved, should know better than anyone.

But he paused as he considered her bargain. Many prayed to him for this sort of rescue, though he’d never answered. “So, you would like to live?”

She glanced at him. “Yes.”

Death was strangely animated; he’d never had to share his thoughts, let alone his plans, with anyone else. He played it out in his mind. It was an exquisite solution. “I’ve grown quite weary of humans. I could collect your soul and bring you to the new world, and that could be your new life.”

“What new world?”

“The one that will be created after I destroy this one,” Death said as a matter of fact.

She lurched up, eyes wide, using the last of her energy. “But you can’t do that. What about all the people? My brother, Silas? He’s out there somewhere. You’re going to kill them all?”

He frowned. She didn’t seem to appreciate the simplicity of the plan. “Precisely the point. I am quite sure there is no one and nothing redeemable among them. It will be good to start again,” he explained. “You would see if—”

“I bet I wouldn’t!” Nella’s chest heaved at her effort. “There’s me, Silas, my late mama, and surely others. We all can’t be as bad as you say.”

“I assure you this is the case.”

“I’ll find proof. I’ll show you what you cannot see. Give me a second chance . . . a new life.”

Keep her living . . . on the earth as it existed. Death thought it over. Could she do it? Make him care about them? Show him something he didn’t already know? Her arrogance amused him. “So, if I save you, grant you life, you’ll bring me this evidence you speak of? And I will decide if humanity should continue its existence?”

Her eyes widened, but she nodded. “What kind of proof do you want?”

What kind, indeed? His eyes dropped to the slim yellow volume.

Death grinned, more excited about this than anything he could ever remember. “Like your book—you’ll be Crusoe. Record your adventures, show me that man is redeemable—worth saving.” He hadn’t paid much attention to the inane scribblings of humans and their vain attempts at remembrance. But this would be different. This would be written for him, and only he would know.

“What’s the catch?” Her eyes narrowed. “There’s always a price.”

Nella continued to amuse Death. He thought she might not have seen much of the world beyond the Carter plantation in Georgia, but she knew that fundamental rule of life: There must always be an exchange for a deal to be honored. “I will give you the second chance you seek. A true chance outside of the shackles of this current existence. Several lifetimes of freedom and a gift to help you be understood, no matter where you might land. And you will write for me. Prove your lofty ideas about redemption and love—”

“What do I lose?” she interrupted.

Death leaned back, the shock of her irreverence increasing his curiosity tenfold. A slow smile crept into the corner of his mouth. “You shall have no descendants. No family. No tangible legacy on this earth. Only the words you write for me. And you can tell no one of our bargain.” He extended a strong brown hand, tickled at the idea. “What do you say?”

“How will you see these words?”

“You will publish them along the way, and I will meet with you to discuss them and anything else you want to show me.”

She took a deep, ragged breath. “How will you know the writing is mine?”

“I will know.” He liked how she underestimated him. “Any more questions?”

“For how long?”

“As long as you are able.” His smile deepened. “Given the task, I doubt it’ll be very long.”

“And if we don’t agree?”

He shrugged. “Then you die. I’ll take your soul and collect the rest of the world as planned.”

He watched memories rush through her mind: her brother and first friend Silas, sold away to the outskirts of New Orleans five years before. Her mama died not soon after that. Her lonely life left behind as Master Carter’s enslaved daughter. “You can’t do that.”

“I can, and I will.” He smiled at her, pleased with his solution despite her turmoil. “Whether I do so or not depends entirely upon you and the bargain you put forth. If I am not compelled by what you write, what you show me, then you’ll come with me, and the rest of this world will end too.”

The small cabin filled with her heavy breathing as she weighed his offer—the gift of life or a certain death.

Slowly, Nella put out her hand. “I’ll do it.”

He took her slender hand in his. He wondered how long it would be before she broke—before she saw the world as he did and surrendered to his will.

“I’ll check in from time to time—I’ll let you know when. Until then, I look forward to your efforts.” He reached out one long brown finger, brushing it across her forehead.

Nella shuddered. He watched the cooling sensation ripple across her skin as the pain receded. She rose, taking her first easy breath in days, lungs clear. She stared at her hands, spots gone, her rich brown skin smooth, every movement effortless. He relished in his power to change her.

Death stood, pulling Nella to her feet. She staggered a bit before she steadied, clutching her book to her chest.

She faced Death, eyes wide, uncertain. “What now?”

He smiled, his teeth white against his tanned brown skin. “What, indeed?”

Part I: SAVANNAH

June, Present Day

The Savannah Tribune

Dust Tracks Column

A CROSSROADS CITY

THE REAPER IGNORES THE HOSTESS CITY

Vivian Edwards

The haunted rumors about Savannah have always been true, despite reports to the contrary. Tourists’ claims of spirits standing above their beds in the Marshall House Hotel or lurking beneath the oaks of Madison Square, their business unfinished or their confusion about their demise ever present, have been debunked by the city council for years. The mayor and aldermen wish to keep ghost hunters searching for paranormal activity out of the city, in favor of a higher caliber of visitor. But perhaps the Hostess City of the South is a crossroads between this life and the next . . . or, worse, has been ignored by Death—the reaper having grown lazy in his collection pursuits, leaving behind untidiness and restless souls.

If seeing the otherworldly is on your vacation wish list, Savannah has all you’ll ever need. See the guide starting on page . . .