by Tara Conklin
First published 2013
Josephine Bell makes a choice that will echo across centuries. At seventeen, she runs from the Virginia tobacco plantation where she has served as both slave and nurse to Lu Anne Bell, an aspiring artist whose failing health matches her family's declining fortune. In 2004 New York, ambitious attorney Lina Sparrow receives an assignment that could launch her career at a prestigious law firm. She must locate the ideal plaintiff for a massive reparations lawsuit targeting descendants of enslaved Americans. Through her father Oscar, a celebrated artist, Lina learns of Josephine and discovers a heated debate shaking the art world. The paintings credited to Lu Anne Bell may actually be Josephine's work. A descendant of Josephine would serve perfectly as the lawsuit's face, but Lina must first trace the runaway's path through plantation records and faded letters. Her search forces uncomfortable questions about her own family's buried secrets, including the circumstances of her mother's death and her father's refusal to discuss the past.
Genres: art, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 21st-century, african-american-historical-fiction, legal-thriller
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-secrets, past-and-present
Setting: New York, Virginia
Period: 2004, 19th-century
370 pages · Hardcover · William Morrow
Content warnings: slavery