Glory over Everything
Beyond the Kitchen House
By
Kathleen Grissom
Simon & Schuster
In 1830s Philadelphia, James Burton was a wealthy,
respected, talented silversmith, but even more he was a man with a huge secret—he
is the son of a slave and the master of Tall Oaks plantation in Virginia. He
has been passing as white, but when his aristocratic married mistress Caroline becomes
pregnant, he knows his identity could be revealed. Then his beloved servant Pan
is abducted and sold as a slave. Fulfilling a promise to Pan’s escaped slave
father, the man who helped him when he reached Pennsylvania, James agrees to
head south to find and bring Pan home.
Caroline’s father, though, has learned James’ secret and
threatens to reveal all unless James leaves his daughter and Philadelphia
behind.
James knows the slave hunters who tracked him when he killed
his own father and escaped Virginia are still searching for him. His journey is
fraught with danger, but aided by new friends, he locates Pan and makes for the
Underground Railroad, with the young boy and the woman who helped them escape. Will
they all make it through the Great Dismal Swamp and back to freedom?
Seen through the various points of view of James, Pan and
others, Glory over Everything is not
a book you will soon forget. Although it’s a continuation of Grissom’s The Kitchen House, it’s also a
stand-alone. It’s not necessary to read the first book to be drawn into the
characters and their stories in Glory
over Everything. It’s poignant, haunting, beautiful and filled with what
love and loyalty, friendship and kindness can accomplish against horrible
malevolence.
Five stars.
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