Awards

• Commended for Audies (Young Adult) 2022

Overview

A tour-de-force from three-time National Book Award finalist Rita Williams-Garcia, this is the story of an antebellum plantation--and the enduring legacies of slavery upon every person who lives there. 1860, Louisiana. After serving as mistress of Le Petit Cottage for more than six decades, Madame Sylvie Guilbert has decided, in spite of her family's objections, to sit for a portrait. While Madame plots her last hurrah, stories come to light that span generations--from the big house to out in the fields--of routine horrors, secrets buried as deep as the family fortune, and the tangled bonds of descendants and enslaved. This astonishing novel from award-winning author Rita Williams-Garcia about the interwoven lives of those bound to a plantation in antebellum America is an epic masterwork--empathetic, brutal, and entirely human.

Full Product Details

9781665078443

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Reviews

Equal parts history and tantalizing, chaotic drama, Williams-Garcia's stunning novel delivers a fresh and nuanced approach to the tale of American slavery. -- Booklist (starred review) In this sweeping, richly researched, and powerfully delivered tale of privilege and exploitation--often a difficult read--Williams-Garcia's storytelling is magnificent; her voice honest and authentic. -- Horn Book (starred review) With a cast of characters whose assorted genealogies feel like an ode to the mixing of peoples and cultures in Louisiana, this story broadens and emboldens interrogations of U.S. chattel slavery. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Author Information

Rita Williams-Garcia is the author of the Newbery Honor-winning novel One Crazy Summer, which was also a winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, a National Book Award finalist, and winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. She is also the author of six distinguished novels for young adults: Jumped, a National Book Award finalist; No Laughter Here; Every Time a Rainbow Dies (a Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book); Fast Talk on a Slow Track (all ALA Best Books for Young Adults); Blue Tights; and Like Sisters on the Homefront, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. She is on the faculty at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in the Writing for Children an Young Adults program. Machelle Williams has crafted an easy storytelling style from twenty-three years as a corporate trainer and keynote diversity speaker. Since 2016 she has successfully produced over twenty-eight audiobook projects. Machelle's voice is nuanced, ranging from soft and soothing to dramatic and smoky. She specializes in mysteries and thrillers; her bespoke repertoire also includes cozy mysteries and nonfiction, as well as titles in the religious, urban, and noire genres. When you need a narrator to take your listener to the edge of their seat and their breath away, trust the telling to Machelle.

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