This outstanding novel about the interwoven lives of those bound to a plantation in antebellum America is an epic masterwork—empathetic, brutal, and entirely human.
A SITTING IN ST. JAMES
by Rita Williams-Garcia
Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins Children’s, May 2021
Ages 14 +
1860, Louisiana. After serving as mistress of Le Petit Cottage for more than six decades, Madame Sylvie Guilberthas decided, in spite of her family’s indifference, to sit for a portrait—a testament to all the hardships she has overcome, and the glory that her life ought to have had. But there are other important stories to be told on the Guilbert plantation. Like that of Thisbe, the young enslaved woman who must stand silent by her mistress, but who observes everything. Or Byron, the heir to the plantation, whose desires cannot possibly fit with his family duty. Stories that span generations, from the big house to out in the fields, of routine horrors, secrets buried as deep as the family fortune, and a tangled lineage of descendants and dependents who have never forgotten who they are.
A complicated, ugly, yet empathetic portrayal of the period: This is not a whitewashed account of slavery; though never gratuitous, the narrative does not shy away from the horrors that occur on the Guilbertplantation. Yet every character is portrayed with empathy and humanization, in all their complications—both the enslaved and the slave owners. It’s a fine balance to strike, but Rita Williams-Garcia does it masterfully.
Rita Williams-Garcia’s Newbery Honor Book, One Crazy Summer, was a winner of the Coretta Scott King Author Award, a National Book Award finalist, the recipient of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and a New York Times bestseller. The two sequels, P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama, were both Coretta Scott King Author Award winners and ALA Notable Children’s Books. She is also the author of National Book Award finalist Clayton Byrd Goes Underground and six distinguished novels for young adults: Jumped, a National Book Award finalist; No Laughter Here, Every Time a Rainbow Dies (a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book), Fast Talk on a Slow Track (all ALA Best Books for Young Adults); Blue Tights; and Like Sisters on the Homefront, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. Rita Williams-Garcia lives in Jamaica, New York.
Katharina Edgeworth seems to have the perfect life. She is the daughter of immigrants, Ivy-League-educated, and speaks four languages. As a single girl in 1940s Manhattan, she is employed as a translator at the newly formed United Nations, devoting her days to her work and the promise of world peace—and her nights to cocktails and the promise of a good time. Now, in 1954 Katharina has the ideal husband, two healthy sons, and enjoys the luxuries of Fifth Avenue; but she is desperate to break free from the constraints of domesticity before depression breaks her for good. When the FBI approaches her to become an informant, Katharina seizes the opportunity. A man from her past has become a high-level Soviet spy, but no one has been able to infiltrate his circle. Enter Katharina, the perfect woman for the job. Navigating the demands of the FBI and the secrets of the KGB, she becomes a courier, carrying stolen government documents from Washington D.C. to Manhattan. But as those closest to her lose their covers, and their lives, Katharina’s secret—which fills her with purpose and reignites her self-worth––soon threatens to ruin her. With the fast-paced twists of a classic spy thriller, a celebration of post-war New York City, and a nuanced depiction of the complexity of motherhood, A WOMAN OF INTELLIGENCE shimmers with Tanabe’s trademark acerbic wit, attention to historical detail, and sharp understanding of human desire.
When Betty and John meet in London at a rally for nuclear disarmament, both are living with secrets about what that war did to them. After fleeing from Germany with her father in 1945, Betty lives with her memories of the Russian occupation, a young Russian officer, and the mysterious disappearance of her sister. John too, is plagued by flashbacks to his time as a translator for the top-secret T-force which uncovered Nazi scientific secrets, and to a young German woman who was brutally murdered, and for whose murder he was framed unless he talked… As their relationship develops, their lives unfold, unravel and entwine. But when a man from the past surfaces, he threatens to reveal secrets. Secrets which will embroil them in the Cold War and threaten their very existence.
Paris, 1750. Madeleine, a young maid with a scarred face and a hidden past, goes to work for an automaton-maker, Dr Reinhart, and his clever daughter, Angelique. Only Madeleine knows the real reason she is there: there are rumours that Reinhart’s mechanical creations are the devil’s work, and she is in the employ of the police as a mouche, to spy on him and report back on his every move. Meanwhile, in the streets outside, children are quietly disappearing – and Madeleine fears for her young nephew. No one knows who can be responsible, but rumours abound around the clockmaker, and even the King of France himself… As Madeleine is drawn further into the household and its secrets, she comes to fear that she has stumbled upon an even greater conspiracy. One which might even reach to the heart of Versailles itself.
What if Elizabeth Macarthur—wife of the notorious John Macarthur, wool baron in the earliest days of Sydney—had written a shockingly frank secret memoir? And what if novelist Kate Grenville had miraculously found and published it? That’s the starting point for A Room Made of Leaves, a playful dance of possibilities between the real and the invented.