Finished book #61- The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
This is a very powerful, moving story about slaves working on a plantation. There is so much senseless violence & death in this story, but the message of family is deep. I liked the character descriptions & could imagine these people in my head. The story is told in 2 different narrators, Lavinia the Irish girl & Belle.
When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family.
Orphaned while onboard ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is to live and work with the slaves of the kitchen house. Under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her adopted family, though she is set apart from them by her white skin.
Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. Lavinia finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When she is forced to make a choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare, and lives are put at risk.
Next book: The Poisonwood Bible
Seriously though, I think I'm the only one on the planet who did not like Defending Jacob. I found it very difficult to get through. And by that I mean emotionally difficult, not that is was boring. I just found it very dark and depressing. I stuck with it because I just knew there would a prize at the end to make all that suffering worthwhile.
). Once I found out what the secret was, I lost interest a little and it took me a while to finish it but, overall, I did enjoy it. I have downloaded a couple more of her books.
