Unfortunately I could not make my recent book club meeting to discuss The Beautiful and Damned, but a new book was chosen! The group selected The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom. Here is the description from Amazon:
"When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family.
Orphaned while onboard ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is to live and work with the slaves of the kitchen house. Under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her adopted family, though she is set apart from them by her white skin.
Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. Lavinia finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When she is forced to make a choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare, and lives are put at risk."
I started The Kitchen House on Friday after work and I cannot put it down. I am 248 pages through the 365 page book and I have not been bored yet. The book is told from the perspective of Lavinia and another character Belle, a servant at the big house and the illegitimate child of the master.
I cannot wait to finish this book and have been reading it every chance I get. Let me know if you have any other book club recommendations!
I just finished State of Wonder by Anne Patchett and it was the first book I've loved in a long time. Highly recommend!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely LOVED this book! Couldn't put it down.
ReplyDeleteI also thought "The House at Riverton" and "The Forgotten Garden" by Kate Morton were great for a book club.