In the warm, rhythmic cadences of the Caribbean, July recounts her youth born into slavery on a sugar plantation known as Amity. At age six, her impish charm spared her the harsher aspects suffered by her mother in the cane fields, when the callow Caroline Mortimer wrenched her from her mother’s arms to become her servant in the main house.
From July’s vantage point, we witness the vanities of the entitled, the petty sabotage by the repressed and humiliated, the boiling anger of the slave uprisings, and the deprivation and dislocation of the aftermath.
July, who for a time captured the heart of Robert Goodwin, the white overseer of Amity, only to be cruelly repulsed and have their child stolen from her, emerges from her struggles to live in freedom and comfort, and love. It is a thrilling, heartbreaking tale with a satisfying ending.
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