Page Twenty

Atonement by Ian McEwan

The book begins in 1935, England. 13-year old Briony Tallis has a very vivid imagination, which is revealed in the short plays she writes to perform for her family. Briony reads a letter meant for her older sister, Cecilia, from Robbie, the son of the Tallis' servant, and also witnesses an encounter between the two of them. Her overactive imagination and misunderstanding of the situation sets in motion an accusation that unravels the Tallis family and changes the lives of everyone involved. The book moves forward five years into WWII, and then jumps ahead to 1999 briefly at the novel's conclusion.

This book is a nice challenge, because, to me, it is reminiscent of Virginia Woolf's writing. But readers beware: this book is also completely heartbreaking.

Page Nineteen

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

This book follows the life of Aminata Diallo. It begins in her small village in West Africa when she was abducted at age 11 and forced to walk for months, naked and in a coffle, to a slave ship bound for the US. She is sold as a slave to an owner of an indigo plantation in South Carolina. The book follows her life from there to Charles Town, to New York, to Nova Scotia - as she becomes one of the many black Loyalists whose name was penned in The Book of Negroes - to Sierra Leone on the back-to-Africa exodus, and finally to London.

A must read for any lover of historical fiction.