By Sue Monk Kidd
Suspenseful and soaring story
With increasing pace and intensity, this beautiful novel unfolds the parallel stories of two friends in Charleston during the 1800's. Slavery is entrenched in this Deep South setting. As the novel progresses Kidd masterfully portrays the girls' -- and then women's -- growing consciousness and voices of mental protest against slavery.
Based on the life of Sarah Grimke, one of the first women's rights activists and an abolitionist, this novel caught and held my imagination from the first page onward.