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Out of Print
Winter 2011 Reading Group List
“A perfect book for reading groups, The Kitchen House makes the reader ponder issues of race in a reverse way, as we see what life was like for Irish orphan Lavinia within the servant community of a tobacco plantation. With characters that are both wonderful and horrible, this is a book that continues to make me think about human nature and cross-cultural relationships.”
— Susan Richmond, Inklings Bookshop, Yakima, WA
Description
Lavinia, a seven-year-old Irish orphan with no memory of her past, arrives on a tobacco plantation where she is put to work as an indentured servant. Placed with the slaves in the kitchen house under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her new adopted family, even though she is forever set apart from them by her white skin. As Lavinia is slowly accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles an opium addiction, she finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When Lavinia marries the master's troubled son and takes on the role of mistress, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare and lives are put at risk. The Kitchen House is a tragic story of page-turning suspense, exploring the meaning of family, where love and loyalty prevail..