We have several debuts to look forward to in the coming months (The Death of Bees, Reconstructing Amelia, The Guilty One), and The House Girl by Tara Conklin is tops amongst them. This stunning debut is a novel of love, family, and justice that intertwines the stories of an escaped house slave in 1852 Virginia and an ambitious young lawyer in contemporary New York. Librarians have been buzzing about it, e.g:
"Excellent first novel about the lives of a house slave in Virginia in the mid 1800s and a first year associate lawyer in a top NYC law firm. The attorney is assigned to help on a case seeking reparations for slavery. She must find a direct descendant of a slave who was harmed by that system to serve as the plaintiff in this important case. We also learn of the life of Josephine, a talented artist who is the house slave on a crumbling plantations." - Jo Dervan, Rutgers University
Also, Sally Bissell from Lee County Library has a blog, Read Around the World, where you can find out her thoughts on this book that "deserves wide readership."
Positive peer praise = Peachy!
– Annie