Grissom, Kathleen

After seven-year-old Lavinia is orphaned on the journey from Ireland to the United States, she begins work in the kitchen house of a tobacco plantation and bonds with the slaves who become her adopted family, but when Lavinia is accepted into the big house, her loyalties are challenged.

"...Continues the story of Jamie Pyke, son of both a slave and master of Tall Oakes, whose deadly secret compels him to take a treacherous journey through the Underground Railroad. This new, stand-alone novel opens in 1830, and Jamie, who fled from the Virginian plantation he once called home, is passing in Philadelphia society as a wealthy white silversmith. After many years of striving, Jamie has achieved acclaim and security, only to discover that his aristocratic lover Caroline is pregnant. Before he can reveal his real identity to her, he learns that his beloved servant Pan has been captured and sold into slavery in the South"--Provided by publisher.

It's 1830, and Jamie Pyke is living comfortably as a Philadelphia aristocrat when an old promise draws him back to the South and back to his muddy past. A child of a plantation master and his kitchen slave, Jamie thought he abandoned his old identity forever, but a quest to save his young friend Pan uncovers Jamie's past, putting both their lives at risk. Jamie, Pan, and Sukey, another escaped slave, must navigate the Underground Railroad and make their leap to lasting freedom.

After seven-year-old Lavinia is orphaned on the journey from Ireland to the United States, she begins work in the kitchen house of a tobacco plantation and bonds with the slaves who become her adopted family, but when Lavinia is accepted into the big house, her loyalties are challenged.