Over the course of 150 years, three strong women from the same Michigan family are drawn into racially charged relationships and confront different kinds of racism in this potent debut novel.
In the present, Elizabeth loses her journalism job at a Detroit newspaper and finds herself submerged in her family’s past via their forgotten old farmhouse, with its peculiar occupant, locked rooms, and hidden graves. As Elizabeth gets to know her secretive great-aunt Nora, a picture emerges of an even farther-flung relative, Mary, whose brave and brash actions during the Civil War era laid the foundation for the heartache and courage of future generations.
With empathy, deep emotion, and meticulous attention to historical detail, Erin Bartels takes the reader time traveling from present-day racial tensions to the explosive 1960s Detroit race riots to Michigan's Underground Railroad during the Civil War. (Revell)
About the Author
Lorilee Craker, a native of Winnipeg, Man., lives in Grand Rapids, Mich. The author of 16 books, she is the Mixed Media editor of The Banner. Her latest book is called Eat Like a Heroine: Nourish and Flourish With Bookish Stars From Anne of Green Gables to Zora Neale Hurston.
