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The New York Times bestselling historical novelist delivers her biggest, boldest, and most ambitious novel yet—a sweeping, dramatic Victorian epic of lost love, lies, jealousy, and rebellion set in colonial Barbados. 1854. From Bristol to Barbados. . . . Emily Dawson has always been the poor cousin in a prosperous merchant clan—merely a vicar’s daughter, and a reform-minded vicar’s daughter, at that. Everyone knows that the family’s lucrative shipping business will go to her cousin, Adam, one day. But when her grandfather dies, Emily receives an unexpected inheiritance: Peverills, a sugar plantation in Barbados—a plantation her grandfather never told anyone he owned. When Emily accompanies her cousin and his new wife to Barbados, she finds Peverills a burnt-out shell, reduced to ruins in 1816, when a rising of enslaved people sent the island up in flames. Rumors swirl around the derelict plantation; people whisper of ghosts. Why would her practical-minded grandfather leave her a property in ruins? Why are the neighboring plantation owners, the Davenants, so eager to acquire Peverills—so eager that they invite Emily and her cousins to stay with them indefinitely? Emily finds herself bewitched by the beauty of the island even as she’s drawn into the personalities and politics of forty years before: a tangled history of clandestine love, heartbreaking betrayal, and a bold bid for freedom. When family secrets begin to unravel and the harsh truth of history becomes more and more plain, Emily must challenge everything she thought she knew about her family, their legacy . . . and herself.
Publication Year: 2019
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0As summer reads go, this is one for a long languid afternoon on the porch with a cold lemonade on a hot day.
Here's what I liked:
- I'm pretty sure this is the first book I've read set in Barbados. The island is captured in all of its beauty and terror during the 1800s, with sugar plantations and exotic flowers, sweltering heat and coastal breezes.
- The story is largely about slavery but this isn't a brutal read. It was informative and well-researched (the author is a historian).
- Transitions between timelines from one chapter to the next. The story in each timeline mirrors one another to an extent, and the way the author carried it through each chapter was really well-done.
- I listened to a few parts on audio while working on sewing projects, and the narration was great. Kudos to the narrator for her accent work (Barbadian, West Country, Irish)!
What didn't work for me:
- The story was a bit too long overall. The pacing picks up about 150 pages in, but the initial set-up could've used some editing.
- I was compelled to keep reading and find out what happened, but I wasn't truly drawn into the story. Victorian-era stories tend to feel a little surface-level to me, and I think it's partly the buttoned-up nature of that period.
3.5 stars
0DNF . Perfectly fine, and somewhat interesting novel set in Barbados. Parts of the story made me uncomfortable.
0
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