Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

I've enjoyed several books by this author focused on life in the Americas.  This one follows Zarite, known as Tete, the daughter of an African mother she never knew, and a white sailor, as she grows up in slavery in Saint-Domingue in the 1770s.  She is purchased by Toulouse Valmorain, to serve in his house and later as his concubine.  The book conveys well the horrid conditions of slavery in the sugar cane plantations that leads to a slave revolt.  When the Valmorain family escapes to Cuba, and later New Orleans, Tete accompanies the family and eventually gains her freedom.  Characters are connected in surprising ways, in some cases in ways that stretch credulity, but the overall picture of the time is very colorful, and you have to root for Tete to pull through.  Translated from the Spanish.  457 pages.