3.5 stars rounded up to 4. Eleanor Shearer’s debut novel, River Sing Me Home, begins on the Providence sugar plantation in Barbados in 1834. The master announces the end of slavery, but the slaves must work as apprentices for another six years. Rachel, born on the plantation, escapes in the dead of night to find her five children, sold away years ago. Her dangerous journey takes her from Barbados through the dense forests of British Guiana across the sea to Trinidad. Along the way, she receives help from former tobacco harvesters and runaway slaves. In Bridgetown, Rachel reunites with her mute daughter, Mary Grace. They travel with a seaman named […]
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A Captivating Tale of Identity and Resilience in the Antebellum South
The Kitchen House is a gripping historical novel set in the late 1700s on a Virginia plantation. Lavinia, a young Irish girl who becomes orphaned during her voyage to America, is at the center of the story. The plantation owner takes her in and assigns her care to Belle, a black slave working in the kitchen house, for her care. Lavinia grows up among the slaves, forming deep bonds with her new family, yet she also struggles with her identity and place in the world as she is neither fully accepted by the slaves nor the white family. The narrative unfolds through the perspectives of Lavinia and Belle, revealing the […]
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