If you're looking for a book to read for Black History Month, this is a wonderful choice. Shearer has used her ancestry & research to write a powerful, tragic, yet ultimately hopeful novel.

It's 1834 in Barbados & Rachel, a slave, is joyous to learn that slavery has been abolished. Yet she's still forced to work at the plantation as an "apprentice" for 6 more years. Heartbroken—both due to this and the fact that five of her living children have been sold or displaced—she escapes, determined to find the fates of Cherry Jane, Mercy, Micah, Thomas Augustus, and Mary Grace. Her journey takes her from Barbados to Bridgetown to British Guiana to Trinidad.

I love books where characters go on a journey, and this one is a page-turner in that as Rachel moves from locale to locale—often with the help of strangers—the ever-present threat of being caught overshadowing her every move. Her interactions with—and the fates—of her children are varied yet illuminating, as they address the different ways slaves carved out a life of love and home amidst the violence and dehumanization they were subjected to. I also appreciated learning about slavery in the Caribbean, which had variances to the slave trade in America.

The characterization of Rachel is magnificent. Her core of strength and determination is enhanced by moments of love, bravery, fear, sadness, and exhaustion. She's especially compelling as a mother who will do all she can for her children, even after being dealt the horrific hand of slavery and, with it, the reality of being impregnated by both male slaves she loved and her white overseers. Her story is, ultimately beautiful—with the road getting there meaningful, educational, emotional, and essential. If you picked this as your @bookofthemonth, read it now!

I both read parts of this and listened to parts on audio. Narrator Debra Michaels does a fabulous job expressing Rachel's myriad emotions. I loved this book!