The Last Runaway: a novel by Tracy Chevalier

Honor Bright, having been jilted by her fiancée, accompanies her sister to America, where she is to be married. It was a difficult voyage; she was ill for the entire trip, and knows she can never go back to England again. Her sister catches yellow fever and dies before they reach Ohio, where she is to be married. Honor stays with her sister's fiancée until she meets and marries Jack Haymaker.

This being 1850, and Honor being a Quaker, she becomes involved in helping runaway slaves, despite her husband's (and his family's) objections. They order her to stop hiding slaves, even threatening to take her baby away and disown her. Yet Honor must remain true to her "inner light".


353 pages

Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Cora, a teenage slave, lives  on a Georgia cotton plantation. Her mother escaped when Cora was a child, and was never re-captured. Cora has had to fend for herself ever since. A new slave to the plantation (Caesar) asks her to escape with him. Even though her life is a living hell, she is afraid of what will happen if she gets caught trying to get away, so she refuses. However, when she is beaten for defending a smaller slave who is being severely punished, she decides to go with Caesar anyway. The two of them escape on the Underground Railroad, which in this novel is a real, not figurative, railroad that was built underground. They escape to South Carolina, where they live for a time as though they are free.

However, the fact that her mother escaped never to be found has caused a festering resentment in her owner. He is determined not to be foiled by another slave, and hires Ridgeway, a ruthless slave catcher, to find her and bring her back. She suffers many times over; every time she thinks she is settled and safe, Ridgeway shows up and she must flee again. In the process, many people who help her suffer cruel punishments.

This books reminds us of a part of our history that we would prefer not to remember.


322 pages

The Secrets of Mary Bowser: A Novel by Lois Leveen

This novel is based on the remarkable true story of Mary Bowser, a young woman who was enslaved in antebellum Richmond, Virginia by the wealthy Van Lew family.  Bet Van Lew, the headstrong daughter of the family had strong abolitionist sentiments, which led her to emancipate Mary and her mother but the law forbade emancipated slaves to live within the state.  Mary traveled to Philadelphia to be educated, and her mother, wishing to remain with her still enslaved "husband" pretended to still be in bondage.  During the period of her life in Philadelphia, her mother passed away, which led Mary to feel a higher calling than that of the bourgeois free blacks she saw around her in Philadelphia.  With the aid of friends who worked with the Underground Railroad, Mary returned to Richmond to pose as an enslaved house girl in order to spy in the home of none other than Confederate States president, Jefferson Davis.  A memorable story of a brave woman history had forgotten.   496 pages