Product Description
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 in the aftermath of slavery 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.
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of February 2023: A powerful story of loss, love and adventure. Rachel is a mother on a mission. Set in the days, weeks, and months after the British Emancipation Act of 1834, Rachel leaves her plantation and travels across the Windward Islands of Barbados, British Guiana and Trinidad to find each of her five children taken during enslavement. Uneducated and with no resources, Rachel depends on her instinct, work ethic, and the sheer kindness of strangers along the way. Step-by-step, Rachel embarks on a love driven mission to be reunited with each child–she will not stop until the mission is complete. Emotional, haunting, and beautifully written, Eleanor Shearer showcases the strength freedom brought to former slaves across the islands–but also shows the struggle many faced going against slave owners unwilling to accept the new reality. Despite struggles along the way, Rachel shows a mother’s love and determination is unmatched.—Kami Tei, Amazon Editor
Review
“A powerful novel that explores how freedom and family are truly defined.”
—Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian
"An extraordinary odyssey of pain, love, and homecoming as Rachel searches not only for her children but for her own past, her own independence, and her own soul. A haunting and powerful debut.”
—Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye
"[A] testament to how hard a mother will fight for her kids."
—Real Simple
"A strong and beautiful novel that stares into the face of brutality and the heart of love."
—Jeanette Winterson,New York Times bestselling author of 12 Bytes and Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
“A moving and dynamic novel…. Shearer treats such a difficult and underexamined part of history deftly and honourably. She sieves through it to give us what all good novelists do; the essential without sacrificing the specific and the historical.”
—The Guardian (UK)
“An incredible debut novel about the power of a mother’s love – highly recommended.”
—Good Housekeeping (UK)
“Hugely profound, hopeful and emotive this is written in lyrical prose that demonstrates Shearer’s mastery of language... A book you will not forget for a long t
