A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK - This beautiful, page-turning
and redemptive story of a mother's gripping journey across the Caribbean
to find her stolen children and piece her family back together is a
"celebration of motherhood and female resilience" (The Observer).
**
"A powerful novel that explores how freedom and family are truly
defined"--Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The
Personal Librarian**
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Real Simple, Goodreads,
AARP, Boston.com, BookBub and BookRiot
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.
