NetGalley Description
A housemaid with a dangerous family secret conspires with a wealthy young abolitionist to help an enslaved girl escape, in volatile pre-Civil War Philadelphia.
The rebel . . . the socialite . . . and the fugitive. Together, they will risk everything for one another in this “beguiling story of friendship, deception, and women crossing boundaries in the name of freedom” (Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Lost Friends).
Philadelphia, 1837. After Charlotte escaped from the crumbling White Oaks plantation down South, she’d expected freedom to feel different from her former life as an enslaved housemaid. After all, Philadelphia is supposed to be the birthplace of American liberty. Instead, she’s locked away playing servant to her white-passing father, as they both attempt to hide their identities from slavecatchers who would destroy their new lives.
Longing to break away, Charlotte befriends Nell, a budding abolitionist from one of Philadelphia’s wealthiest Black families. Just as Charlotte starts to envision a future, a familiar face from her past reappears: Evie, her friend from White Oaks, has been brought to the city by the plantation mistress, and she’s desperate to escape. But as Charlotte and Nell conspire to rescue her, in a city engulfed by race riots and attacks on abolitionists, they soon discover that fighting for Evie’s freedom may cost them their own.
Review by Coffee&Ink
What an incredible novel! Two women of color with completely different backgrounds meet in pre-Civil War Philadelphia. They attend book discussions but which eventually gets them involved in the abolitionist movement. Nell comes from the Black Elite and Charlotte escaped enslavement, but had to leave her friend Evie behind. When Evie is brought to Philadelphia, the city is already rocked with riots and filled with danger. But nothing can compare to what she endures at the hands of her enslavers, and freeing her challenges her former friend Charlotte and Nell. Abolition is no longer just a discussion, now it’s time to act.
Fantastic story, excellent writing and attention to historical detail. The three women have distinct voices, as they each tell of their own part in the whole story. Highly recommended for lovers of historical fiction and women’s fiction.
thank you NetGalley for a copy of this book to read and review.
Coffee And Ink 