If you liked The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, this is a good read-alike.

posted Jan 5, 2011 at 3:11PM

Especially enjoyed listening to this book on disks. It was very well done and helped place you at the time in the history of the US. Would recommend as a good read.

posted May 7, 2012 at 8:59AM

The Kitchen House is home to Lavinia who is indentured as a white Irish immigrant in the late 1700's in Virginia. The "Captain" would have sold her because she was an orphan but she was too sick to sell. Some of the slaves who live on the Captains plantation become her family and this situation is further complicated as Lavinia grows up and realizes that she is in the same place as they are as far as her personal freedom is concerned. This one is a genuine gem of a story, very evocative and absorbing as well an excellent history lesson!

posted Dec 6, 2012 at 10:26PM

Six-year-old Lavinia arrives at Tall Oaks, a Virginia plantation, late in the 1700s. It is home to the ship’s captain, who has her on his hands because of money owed him, following her family’s immigration from Ireland when her parents die at sea. She’s taken to the plantation’s kitchen house to live as an indentured servant among the enslaved people who become her family. Belle, a daughter of the captain and his liaison with a servant who died in childbirth, who cooks for the big house becomes one of the house servants who see that she thrives in this new place. The indentured immigrant girl with red hair and freckles is an interesting story angle to what is a not-so-new tale of the hardships experienced on an Old South plantation and the complicated family relationships that bind both black and white. Her struggle to find her place takes an uncharacteristic turn when she marries the captain’s son Marshall. This book is a page turner. Lavinia is a naïve young woman; Belle is challenged to get what she’s been promised. What will the future hold for each of them?

posted May 2, 2013 at 9:39PM

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