Yellow Crocus: antebellum south and the unlikely bond between two women

Yellow Crocus is the first book in the Freedman/Johnson series by Laila Ibrahim. It is a story of two women in two worlds. At 19, Mattie is awakened one night and called to the main house. The mistress is in labor and she is needed as a wet nurse. She is forced to leave behind her infant son to change for the new baby. Moments from Lisbeth’s birth, she is taken from her mother and handed over to Mattie. What was supposed to be a temporary arrangement turns into an intense relationship between Mattie and Lisbeth. From the outside, Lisbeth seems to be living the life as a privileged daughter of a local plantation owner. But inside, she is lonely and unsure around her overwhelmed mother, her distant slave-owner father and very traditional grandmother. As she grows older, Mattie is more her family and she begins to question the status quo even if it is quietly. Will Lisbeth be able to stay quiet for long? 

Yellow Crocus is a beautifully written story of an unlikely love and bond between two women that society would deem separate and unequal. But through their connection, they will realize that they are more the same than they are different. Both women are searching for freedom and dignity and both women find their way to both with dire consequences. Yellow Crocus doesn’t shy away from the realities of slavery. Ms. Ibrahim realistically depicts the treatment of the slaves, the attitudes of the slave owners and the secrets they often hide in vivid details without being grotesque. Before reading this story, I wasn’t aware of what a yellow crocus was and the flower features prominently in the story. I love the imagery of the yellow crocus which is a hardy flower that blooms in the harshest conditions, just like Mattie and Lisbeth. As the story ended, I was eager to learn more about Lisbeth and Mattie’s lives. I look forward to reading the rest of the series. I highly recommend Yellow Crocus. 

Yellow Crocus is available in paperback, eBook, and audiobook

The Tide Between Us: a story of the Irish-Caribbean slavery and emancipation

The Tide Between Us by Olive Collins is an epic story of Irish-Caribbean slavery and emancipation. The story opens in Ireland, 1991 and a skeleton has been found when a violent storm uprooted a tree. The story goes back in time to 1821 when 10-year-old Irish body, Art O’Neil, is deported to the British Caribbean colony of Jamaica as an indentured servant. He is among the thousands of Irish were sent from their homeland to the colony. Art gradually acclimates to the exotic country, the customs of the African slaves as he builds a life there. When the new heirs arrive at the plantation, old ghosts are resurrected for Art of the brutal injustices he and his family suffered back in Ireland, he plots his revenge. He bides his time and hides his loathing from his new master. As he works, he prospers and buys land and he works with the promise of a gold coin for every decade of service. One day he sets out to claim his coins, he has a feeling that he may not return home alive. Then the story fast forwards to Ireland, 1991, as Yseult, the owner of Lugdale Estate, must deal with the skeleton discovery as well as the news that a gold coin, minted in 1870, was found with it. As she watches the events unfold, she must face the long-buried secrets of her family’s past. How long can she hide before the past forces her to face it? 

The Tide Between Us is truly an epic story of a little known history of the Irish indentured servants in Jamaica. Ms. Collins was inspired by the real events of 2,000 Irish children deported to Jamaica and the statistic that 25% of Jamaican citizens claim Irish ancestry. Separated in two parts, the story takes the reader deep into the slave trade and the day to day life on a plantation and two families who are connected through history, blood and circumstances. It is a very powerful story which brings to life historical events that have been hidden. It is also about the resilience of the human spirit as one fights against his or her circumstances to build a better life for their descendants. For me, Part 1 was far more engaging and interesting than Part 2. While heartbreaking to read the appalling treatment and conditions the slaves had to endure, I was glad that Ms. Collins didn’t shy away from the very real facts. Unfortunately, Part 2 introduced Yseult who is 81 and as cranky and grumpy as an older woman can get. She was a hard character to like and sympathize with. By the end, the reader discovers the reasons for her attitude, it didn’t make her likeable or sympathetic. Overall, I enjoyed The Tide Between Us and highly recommend it. One piece of advice, it is a thick book, about 560 pages, it will take time to read it and you will have to take your time to truly appreciate the depth of the story. 

The Tide Between Us is available in paperback and eBook. 

The Valley: a story of a new beginning in a Virginian valley

The Valley by Helen Bryan is book one of The Valley Trilogy. After the death of her father, Sophia Grafton faces a choice: live in poverty in England or move to the colonies where her father has a tobacco plantation. She chooses to take her chances with the plantation. Only once she get there, she realizes the plantation and life in the colonies isn’t at all how it was convened to her. She begins to carve out a living with a ragtag group of freed slaves, traders and other who don’t fit elsewhere. Together they fight Indian attacks, disease, and the dread slave snatchers. Will Sophia be able to make her plantation a success? Will she survive the wild wilderness of the Americas?

The Valley is an interesting story of a beautiful valley in Virginia. It is filled with wonderful characters, beautiful scenery amd action of life on a homestead. The last few chapters were confusing as to how they fit into the story. My conclusion is that the end of the book will connect with book 2 of this trilogy. If you enjoy historical fiction, you will enjoy The Valley. I recommend this book as beautiful story of the people who lived here in the beginnings of our country.

The Valley is available on Amazon.com

In paperback, on the Kindle and Audible

The Invention of Wings: a book about an often forgotten historical figure

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd is a story about a young girl who grows up on a southern plantation to become one of the greatest human rights advocates who would influence countless women after her. When I was given the book, I was told that it was about a real person which made the story more interesting. As I started reading, I realized I recognized the name, Sarah Grimke. As I googled her name, I realized that I studied her in my college history courses. Along with her sister, Angelina and her brother-in-law, Theodore, she would write the second most influential anti-slavery literature. American Slavery As It Is would be second only to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Ms. Stowe was heavily influenced by their book.

The Invention of Wings opens in November 1803 with Hetty “Handful” Grimke, a slave and daughter of the Grimke’s seamstress, Charlotte. Handful is given to Sarah as her lady’s maid by her parents on Sarah’s eleventh birthday. Sarah wants no part in owning a slave but she is stuck. She vows to free Handful somehow. The two women will form a friendship that will test the understanding what a privileged white woman could have on the plight of the African slaves. Through both women’s eyes, the reader will be witness to the harshness that slaves were treated with. Harsh punishments for behavior as simple as looking in the wrong direction. Sarah will find a voice in a society where women weren't allowed to have opinions much less voice them.

The story is actually told from the perspectives of both Sarah and Handful as each chapter is from viewpoint of one of the women. Handful as she struggles with the bonds of slavery and Sarah as she struggles with the bonds of societal gender roles. The reader begins to see both sides of a turning points in our nation’s history. The battle for the abolition movements is heating up as the story ends in June 1838, 23 years before the start of the Civil War, the reader knows it’s not the end for these two women. While I was familiar with Sarah Grimke, I enjoyed reading her background and how she developed her world views. She is known as an abolitionist and a woman’s rights advocate but to her, they are one in the same: human rights. Racial equality and gender equality it was all the same to her. 

This book begins slowly but as you read, you get hooked. You want to know what happens to Handful, her mom, Charlotte, and Sarah. I enjoyed Ms. Kidd’s inclusion of the famous names of the time. Names like Denmark Vesey, a freed slave who would be executed for planning a slave revolt, Henry Clay who helped devise the Missouri Compromise, which would add fuel to the abolition fire, and William Lloyd Garrison, editor of an abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. There is so much more that I could write about but I would rather you read the book for yourself and discover the history of a woman who was instrumental to the cause of abolition even though many who study history will never know her name.