Yellow Crocus
2010 • 229 pages

Ratings5

Average rating4.4

15

Moments after her birth to the mistress of a sprawling Virginia plantation, Lisbeth Wainwright is entrusted to Mattie, an enslaved wet nurse. From then on, Mattie serves as Lisbeth's stand-in mother, nursing her, singing her to sleep, and soothing her in the night. And yet mothering Lisbeth tears Mattie away from her own baby, Samuel, who lives in the slave quarters. Growing up under Mattie's tender care, Lisbeth adopts her traditions of prayer, singing, eating black-eyed peas, and hunting for yellow crocuses in the spring. As the years pass, Lisbeth is drawn back into the white world, earning a growing awareness of the inequality of her and Mattie's stations. She struggles to reconcile her love for Mattie with her parents' expectations for her future, intent on keeping the best of both worlds-until a terrible betrayal forces her to choose once and for all. Yellow Crocus is a compelling novel of love, loss, and redemption set during one of the most sinister chapters of American history.

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Series

Series

4 primary books

#1 in Freedman/Johnson

Freedman/Johnson is a 4-book series with 4 primary works first released in 2010 with contributions by Laila Ibrahim.


Reviews

Popular Reviews

Reviews with the most likes.

Sooz767
SuziSupporter

Nice book about a slave and the family she worked for. Not amazing, not life changing - but well written, with some moving parts, and on a topic that in itself is sad and pungent.


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