The House Girl in WACKY READING CHALLENGES

Feb 05, 2015 Book Concierge rated it liked it

Shelves: southern-lit, concierge, strong-women, library, politics, racism, historical-fiction, 19th-century, audio, art

Audiobook performed by Bahni Turpin

In contemporary New York City, attorney Carolina Sparrow is working on an historic class-action lawsuit seeking reparations for the descendants of American slaves. In 1852, Josephine is a house slave who tends to the mistress of a Virginia tobacco plantation; her mistress is the artist Lu Anne Bell. The two stories converge when Lina hears of a controversy rocking the art world: art historians now suspect that the paintings ascribed to Lu Anne Bell may really h ...more

8 likes · Like · see review

May 22, 2013 Debbie (Doc) rated it liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, read-in-2013, around-the-states, listopia-challenge

The majority of the reviews that I have seen from Ms. Conklin’s debut novel were very good. It is with this premise in mind that I almost hate to post my review. While I found this book good, it was by no means great. For me, there were just too many flaws and unanswered questions. I thought there would be one main storyline, which was that of Josephine, the slave house girl. However, this book branched in many directions with several stories that ended up intertwining with the main story. It wa ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Mar 18, 2020 Tara rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2020

I am quite unsure as to what to make of this book. First, it had a very slow beginning for me. Very slow. As in so slow I didn't even want to pick it back up for a few days. It wasn't really until the connection between the two storylines was revealed that I found myself at all interested in the book. Second, the book, while well-written, definitely felt there were some holes. Some things would be discussed to the finest little detail, while others were just left with big holes. And finally - th ...more

Like · see review

Mar 03, 2014 Kathryn rated it it was ok

Shelves: historical-fiction, non-fiction, library, audiobooks, read-in-2017, overdrive-libby

The premise of this book was very promising, but it just didn't meet expectations. Too many subplots going on, poor character development, and just basically confusing at times. This was the author's debut novel and sadly, it shows. I really wanted to like or even love it and unfortunately, I didn't. ...more

Like · see review