In honor of Black History Month beginning today, I wanted to share an up and coming novel from a debut author that promises to be moving, emotional, unique, and beautiful. Author Eleanor Shearer is a mixed race author with roots in the Caribbean. She has been drawn to Caribbean history and her love of Caribbean history is evident in this hot new release!
Many Black history books focus on the slavery happening in the South, but this book promises to look at a new region and a new approach too the topic by beginning at the end. In this book the Emancipation Act of 1834 has been signed and implanted, but a mother is still searching for her stolen children. I love the sound of this story. Not only are we beginning at the end, we are also traveling throughout the Caribbean with this mother searching for answers. That was the big thing that drew me to this book—-the new approach to history and a history that isn’t always looked at. As I said a lot of books focus on slavery in the south but looking at how slavery impacted other regions like the Caribbean as well as how things changed (or didn’t) once the Emancipation Act as signed.
There are so many stunning books out there that feature Black history and with Black History month here, I know there will be lists full of choice reading and I sure hope this book is on your TBR list. It sounds so wonderful and unique and I think readers will get a lot out of it so if you haven’t done so already be sure to get this one on your TBR list. It’s on mine and I cannot wait to start reading it!
Summary
Rare. Moving. Powerful. This beautiful, page-turning and redemptive story of a mother’s gripping journey across the Caribbean to find her stolen children in the aftermath of slavery is a remarkable debut.
Her search begins with an ending….
The master of the Providence plantation in Barbados gathers his slaves and announces the king has decreed an end to slavery. As of the following day, the Emancipation Act of 1834 will come into effect. The cries of joy fall silent when he announces that they are no longer his slaves; they are now his apprentices. No one can leave. They must work for him for another six years. Freedom is just another name for the life they have always lived. So Rachel runs.
Away from Providence, she begins a desperate search to find her children–the five who survived birth and were sold. Are any of them still alive? Rachel has to know. The grueling, dangerous journey takes her from Barbados then, by river, deep into the forest of British Guiana and finally across the sea to Trinidad. She is driven on by the certainty that a mother cannot be truly free without knowing what has become of her children, even if the answer is more than she can bear. These are the stories of Mary Grace, Micah, Thomas Augustus, Cherry Jane and Mercy. But above all this is the story of Rachel and the extraordinary lengths to which a mother will go to find her children…and her freedom. (summary from Goodreads)
The Lit Bitch 