When a wrongful arrest destroys everything he's worked for, Jean Valeur discovers that surviving Rikers Island was only the beginning—now he must navigate a silenced city, fractured relationships, and his own quest for forgiveness in a world that seems determined to break him.
Delivered is a moving, contemporary novel about Jean Valeur, a Haitian American NYU grad student whose life is derailed after he’s wrongly arrested during a party sting. After a harrowing stint at Rikers Island, Jean is released under a COVID-19 emergency order into a city unrecognizable from the one he once knew. Now a food delivery worker, he must rebuild a broken life, reconnect with estranged loved ones, and face the friend who betrayed him.
Told entirely in Jean’s raw, lyrical voice, Delivered is an unforgettable story of redemption, justice, and self-forgiveness.
“Freedom, it suggests, is not the absence of bars, but the hard-won choice to forgive not just others but also oneself.” — Publishers Weekly