Books like Sweetsmoke by David Fuller
In the midst of the Civil War, 1862 Virginia’s tobacco plantations become the backdrop for a quieter, yet brutal conflict. Cassius Howard, a skilled slave carpenter, learns of Emoline’s murder— a freed black woman who had once saved his life and taught him to read. Determined to seek justice where the war’s chaos blunts attention to his plight, Cassius faces perilous obstacles: punishment, potential sale to a cotton plantation, and the threat of death. He finds unlikely allies, such as Quashee, a newly brought woman from another plantation, and confronts formidable opposition in Hoke Howard, his master. Through Cassius’s quest, the novel portrays the daily indignities and harrowing losses experienced by enslaved people, the internal wars raging across the nation, and the fight for identity, salvation, and freedom.
First publish date: 2008
Genre: Historical Fiction/19th Century Historical Fiction
Authors: David Fuller
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