2004: Lina Sparrow, an artist's daughter, is an ambitious young lawyer working on a historic class-action lawsuit seeking reparations for the descendants of American slaves. 1852: Josephine, a seventeen-year-old slave, tends to the mistress of a Virginia tobacco farm - an aspiring artist named Lu Anne Bell. Lina's search to find a plaintiff for her case will introduce her to Josephine's story. Was she the real talent behind her mistress's now-famous...

"Already excerpted in the New Yorker, Black Cloud Rising is a compelling and important historical novel that takes us back to an extraordinary moment when enslaved men and women were shedding their bonds and embracing freedom By fall of 1863, Union forces had taken control of Tidewater Virginia, and established a toehold in eastern North Carolina, including along the Outer Banks. Thousands of freed slaves and runaways flooded the Union lines, but...

Tells the story of Hannah Crafts, a young slave working on a wealthy North Carolina plantation, who runs away in a bid for freedom up North. Her compelling story provides a fascinating view of American life in the mid-1800s and the literary conventions of the time. Written in the 1850s by a runaway slave, is a provocative literary landmark and a significant historical event that will captivate a diverse audience.

"Dark clouds and chaos descend lower upon America as the war rages around them -- threatening all they hold dear. Carrie & Robert are once more pulled apart, and Carrie finds herself the target of a hostile group of men determined to stop her from providing medical care to black residents of Richmond. How long can she continue to save other people's lives at the risk of her own? Riots erupt in the North, threatening those she loves, and she is pulled...

"Born a slave, Bledsoe had never left Our Joy plantation, and a daring escape offers his only chance for liberty. On the run he encounters Alice, an Irish indentured servant committing what appears to be an act of murder as she burns down a shack in the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina. Faced with the threat of capture, Bledsoe and Alice become reluctant allies. An epic tale unfolds as their quest for freedom pulls them from swamp to city, from...