Mini Audiobook Review: Thank you so much to Simon Books for a copy of the book!

Wow!!! I read House of Eve last year for book club and I wanted to go back to read this one as a reader friend from the club praised it. So when Simon was kind of enough to send me a copy, I knew it was time.

This book is very heavy. I highly recommend checking the trigger warnings before reading. Sadeqa wrote with such honesty and gave such an image of what life was like for Black men and women during the time of slavery. The beginning confused me for a bit but then the light switched and I was invested in this story of Pheby and her life on a plantation. She was counting down until she turned 18 and was freed but instead she ends up at Devil's Acre and becomes the "wife" of the head jailer.

I know this is a fictional book but I imagine most of what happened within the book was what happened during that time in history. In the author's note, Sadeqa was inspired by Mary Lumpkin who was the wife of Robert Lumpkin who ran a jail in Virginia.

Despite the heaviness, I also found a sense of hope. Pheby knew had this hope that it wouldn't be forever and she was just surviving.

I read this one via audio and thought Robin Miles did a fabulous job! I was not familiar with their narration previously bought she was able to bring the strength, vulnerability and resilience through her tone to channel Pheby as well as the other characters.

Highly recommend!