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Not just another book retelling the horrors of slavery. Perkins-Valdez brings to life a little-known piece of history, and I'm so glad she did. If she hadn't, the fact that white slave owners not only kept black women as sex slaves, but elevated them in a way that sometimes surpassed the roles of their own white wives, and traveled with them on vacation to a place near Xenia, Ohio, would have disappeared into our tragic American history. The author worked hard to show the complexity of the relationships. No easy answers in this book, as the lead character, Lizzie, wonders if she loves her master, the same master who chains her to a porch then kisses her and calls her his darling, one of the most chilling scenes in the book for me. It's all there, the sick, power-driven intentions of the white male during southern slavery, in that simple scene. And the dignity of the women, both black and white, who bear their burden in different ways gets center stage in this gritty but thought-provoking novel.