Author: Joy Jordan-Lake
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Year: 2017
Genre(s):historical fiction, contemporary fiction, drama
Part of a Series: No.
Rating:
Why I Read It: Once Upon a Book Club selection
Summary: It’s 2015 and Katherine “Kate” Drayton has just walked out of her post-grad program at Harvard University to drive all the way to Charleston, South Carolina. She is still dealing with the sudden loss of her mother and hopes to finish her mother’s life work, studying an 1822 slave uprising and the possibility that one of the conspirators may have escaped after all. Kate also hopes to solve the mysteries of her mother’s past, ones that haunted Sarah Grace and drove her from her beloved Charleston when Kate was just a girl. She befriends young Gabe Russell as well as his father and along with society maven Rose Pickney, Kate starts to dig into Charleston’s dark past.
Kate’s story is alternated with the story of Tom Russell, the slave who possibly escaped punishment following the failed 1822 revolt. He is drawn into the revolt almost unwillingly due to his abilities to make weapons and that he was allowed to work in a smithy rather than in his master’s house. Tom, though, aids Vesey—the leader—in order to help free his pregnant love, Dinah, who is being abused by her master. Dinah, though, may find them help in the most unlikely of places—her master’s daughter and Rose Pickney’s ancestor.
Secrets from the distant past and ones from the recent past swirl around Kate and she gets close to learning them as tragedy strikes Charleston, giving everyone a new perspective on the past, the present and the future.
Review: It took me a while to get into the book. Or at least into Kate’s story. I think Jordan-Lake got bogged down with the exposition of setting up Kate’s world and why she’s in Charleston, so it took too long for the main thrust of the story to get started. This is in stark contrast to the bits with Tom Russell, which start immediately with the action and then let the exposition roll out over time. It probably would’ve been better if she had done the same with Kate’s story.
Kate is an interesting protagonist but at the same time, she’s just so consumed with discovering her mother’s secrets and finishing her work, she almost has no character of her own. And I wonder if Jordan-Lake would’ve done better just to tell a straight historical fiction story about Tom Russell rather than bringing in Kate and ultimately the real life tragedy that occurred when Dylann Roof murdered several members of Mother Immanuel Church in Charleston while they were in a prayer group. Sarah Grace’s secret ultimately isn’t much of a big shock—maybe it’s my own white privilege speaking and the fact I’m a northerner, but it didn’t sound like something that needed to be guarded as if it were of top national security. Its reveal was kind of a let down.
Gabe and his father Daniel feel a bit more fleshed out but still in many ways, the characterization in the parts set in 1822 far surpassed the modern bits. Tom, Dinah, Nina and Emily had fears and dreams and goals. They felt a bit more like real people than just characters in a story that are there just to push things forward.
Though the best character in the entire story is Charleston itself. Jordan-Lake clearly has a passion and love for the city which comes through in her writing. She describes the city and its people so well, it almost feels like the reader has been transported to the city.. It comes to life, as does it’s history—even the not so great parts. Still, it is something that’s beautiful and resilient, much like her people—the ones it was clear Jordan-Lake was trying to honor and portray, even if she may not have quite achieved that.
Bottom line: A good historical fiction story with a contemporary section that needed to be a bit stronger.
Sex: Strong implications of a rape scene.
Moonlight Musing
Have you ever fallen in love with a city?
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