by Laird Hunt
First published 2017
Ginny leaves home as a teenager to marry Linus Lancaster, her mother's second cousin, settling into life on his remote Kentucky pig farm. The property sits ninety miles from any town, surrounded by thick woodland and rolling pastures. Linus promised her a kind of paradise, but Ginny soon learns her husband owns slaves and treats them with shocking cruelty. She forms friendships with two young enslaved women, Cleome and Zinnia, who labor on the property. When Linus begins pursuing the women sexually, Ginny faces an impossible choice between loyalty to her husband and protection of her only friends. After Linus dies, the three women must navigate the aftermath of his violence and find ways to survive in antebellum Kentucky. Their shared trauma bonds them as they struggle toward some form of healing.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 19th-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, survival
Setting: Kentucky, United States
Period: Antebellum, 19th Century
MP3 CD · Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio
Content warnings: abuse, slavery, violence