What a great read! But, why hasn't this been turned into a movie yet? I found this book at our local Goodwill for $2.99. I'll be handing it off to my soon to be 13 year old granddaughter to read next. I only found the ending felt a little too rushed.

The story takes place in late 18th century southern Virginia on a tobacco growing plantation called Tall Oaks. The author alternates between two storytellers, Belle, the secret daughter of her master, Captain James Pyke, and Lavinia, a 6 year old migrant, orphaned girl from Ireland. Her parents ended up dying on Captain Pykes ship on their way to America. He sold Lavinia's brothers and took in Lavinia as an indentured slave as payment. Although, he was a very fair master, this story shows just how unpredictable life of slavery really was and how it could turn on a dime.

What's interesting, is this author claims to be able to write spiritually, as if someone is leading her to write their story. As she and her husband were in the middle of renovating an old historic tavern in Virginia, she suddenly sat and wrote out the Prologue to this book in one sitting, as if someone was dictating to her. This became the basis of the story. ( )

so sad, yet moving. Unreal in the sense that things that happened then out of fear are so removed from today. They took so much as "the way it was" when a reader today wants to scream "Nooooo" as you read things unfolding. ( )

The format of this audiobook, with alternating narrators voicing Lavinia (a very young indentured servant from Ireland) and Belle (the child of a slaveholder and a kitchen worker), works very well and keeps the tension high in this fictional narrative of life on a Virginia plantation in the late 1700s-early 1800s. There is misery all around Tall Oaks, but of course even the "best of masters" is still a "master". Lavinia, orphaned on the voyage to the Colonies, is adopted into the enslaved family that runs the plantation house. She grows up not understanding her odd position and this naivete does not serve her well in her adult life. Belle is much more savvy and gives voice to her own odd position, as the half-white daughter promised her freedom papers by her father. There are some plot holes in the form of, "Why didn't you..." but they're not too intrusive into the riveting story, featuring many strong secondary characters. ( )

An orphan is adopted by a plantation owner and indentured. She is raised by slaves. WHen the owner dies, his dissolute son proceeds to drive the plantaion into the ground. Many passages accomplish rich evocation of the feelings of the slaves. The story could have descended into stock melodrama, but several of the principal characters have depth and complexity. This was a book on tape and the readers did an excellent job! ( )

Given the chance, I would've rated this 3 1/2 stars. Though I enjoyed this read, there were times when I just had to say, "Really?" The inability of the main character to grasp the realities of her life on a plantation drove me absolutely crazy. When I was able to get past my disbelief, I enjoyed the book. Much of the time, I was just shaking my head. ( )