Kathleen Grissom - The Kitchen House

Published 29th August

This is a book that stays with you long afterwards. Even now writing this review I am transported back to the plantation.
This book is much better than The Help with which it is being compared.

A young Irish child Lavinia is orphaned on a ship being transported over to the USA in the late Eughteenth Century. The Captain also has a plantation, his sea faring trips paying towards his upkeep. He seperates her from her brother sells the boy into indentured service and takes the girl home with him and sets her to work with the black kitchen slaves.
This is a clever plot device as it allows us to compare and contrast the plight of the black slave against the dirt poor white.To look and kindness and corruption in equal measure.
Seen through the eyes of a child as she grows up and the eyes of the illegitimate half caste daughter of the owner, we see both sides of the coin.

This book does not pull any punches and the horrors of slavery are shown in all it 's gory detail.

There is a huge amount in this book for book groups. Slavery, child abuse, neglect, alcoholism, madness - it has the lot. I highly recommend it.