From the New York Times bestselling author of The Baker's Daughter, a story of family, love, and courage
When Sarah Brown, daughter of abolitionist John Brown, realizes that her artistic talents may be able to help save the lives of slaves fleeing north, she becomes one of the Underground Railroad’s leading mapmakers, taking her cues from the slave code quilts and hiding her maps within her paintings. She boldly embraces this calling after being told the shocking news that she can’t bear children, but as the country steers toward bloody civil war, Sarah faces difficult sacrifices that could put all she loves in peril.
Eden, a modern woman desperate to conceive a child with her husband, moves to an old house in the suburbs and discovers a porcelain head hidden in the root cellar—the remains of an Underground Railroad doll with an extraordinary past of secret messages, danger and deliverance.
Ingeniously plotted to a riveting end, Sarah and Eden’s woven lives connect the past to the present, forcing each of them to define courage, family, love, and legacy in a new way.
I began reading with eager anticipation. This novel alternates between a contemporary storyline and the historical one that revolves around Sarah Brown. I was disappointed that every chapter alternates with the contemporary storyline and the contemporary protagonist is such a unlikeable character that I began to dread those chapters. I also didn't care for the precocious neighbor child who acts far to old and knows too much to be a realistic character!
I wish the author had focused solely on the life of Sarah Brown because the contemporary storyline spoiled what might have been a decent book of historical fiction.
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