Ranking: 5 quills
“The Kitchen House” ….Kathleen Grissom has written a contemporary story of the old south with a new twist…that of the indentured servant.
White immigrants to this country, indentured for years, were nothing more than white slaves.
An immigrant would contract to work for an employer for several years in exchange for the cost of passage and room and board. They lived with or near their employer and worked as an unpaid servant. This was a common occurrence between the 17th and 19th centuries. They survived beatings, rape, and sometimes were killed by their employers with impunity.
Synopsis: ‘When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family. Orphaned while on board a ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is to live and work with the slaves in the kitchen house. Under the care of Belle, a slave and the master’s illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her adopted family, though she is set apart from them by her white skin. Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. Lavinia finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. Forced to make a choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare, and lives are put at risk.’
The Kitchen House is a tragic story of page-turning suspense, exploring the meaning of family, where love and loyalty prevail.
This is so well written you won’t be able to put it down. I cannot wait for Grissom’s next novel….I know it will be a good one!
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