This was excellent, if hard to read at times due to some violence (which felt true to the times, and to the characters). It begins with the arrival of Lavinina, a young girl, at a tobacco farm where she is indentured after the death of her parents. She is raised by the house servants and eventually sent off to live with some relatives of the family, as a companion to their daughter. Lavinia later marries the son of the plantation owner and moves back home, and we watch as things fall apart. The book is told from three points of view -- Lavinia, Belle and Mama Mae, two of the women who raised her. I enjoy this kind of storytelling as it really heightens the tension, because the reader knows things that some characters do not, and I think it highlights a parallel with the real world that we don't get so much in literature -- sometimes peopel just have the wrong idea or bad information, and no one else knows to correct them. I loved the characters and found myself wondering about them when I wasn't reading the book. I definitely recommend this.

I read this as an audiobook, and it was a wonderful recording. Each of the narrators has her own voice and accent, which I think really enhances the story and makes it that much easier to immerse yourself, as you're not struggling with how to interpret the dialect.