I can't figure out why this wasn't hooking me. 

It had so many great elements: Canadian, strong female lead, historical interest, great descriptions, great voice actor for audiobook; but I just could not connect. While reading about slavery is never fun I was fully leaning into the discomfort, so it wasn't the subject matter.

Maybe the point of view? I found the inner thoughts a bit repetitive and too extraneous at times, maybe I would have hung on longer for a 3rd person narration to help cut down on that... 

I honestly don't know. I'll be picking up other works by this author in future though!