If an entire nation can seek its freedom, why not a girl?

This novel takes place in New York, 1776.  When Isabel and her little sister Ruth’s mistress die they are cruelly sold as slaves to a spiteful couple who live in New York City, despite being freed in their mistress's will.  Throughout the novel Isabel tries to seek freedom and her search becomes more urgent when Ruth is harshly sold away from Isabel to another family.

One thing that I don’t like about this novel is that I didn’t always understand which side the characters in the novel were on, the rebels or the loyalists, and therefore I did not know when to be happy, sad, excited or worried.  I did not quite understand what each side was fighting for either; to me it seemed that they were both offering the same thing. I think this novel would have been a lot more enjoyable if I had understood fully the reasons behind some actions. This shows Anderson did not explain this well enough.

I found it took a while to get into this novel and I don’t think Anderson achieved a page-turner. I thought it was quite slow to read and therefore I did not gain much pleasure from reading this novel. In one part of the novel Anderson manages to create great suspense and it takes you completely by surprise as you are not expecting anything to happen: it seems like just a normal day.

‘"There you are.” [...] “How dare you?” she spat’.

I think the passage works so well and takes you by surprise because a great deal of this novel is just Isabel’s day to day life and her opinion about it. 

However even though I did not think it was a page-turner I still would like to read the forthcoming volume Forge to find out if Isabel and her companion survive and manage to find and rescue Isabel’s little sister Ruth. I think the ending is well done as it leaves the reader with many possibilities and makes you wonder what will happen to the characters – and therefore read the next novel. 

I think Anderson shows Isabel’s emotions very well and I liked how it was written with Isabel’s own little sayings:

‘Strangest of all was the hive of bees that had taken residence inside of me [...] The buzzing echoed in my brainpan’.

Even though I did not always understand fully what she meant by this I still enjoyed reading these little sayings of Isabel’s.  Also I think Anderson did a good job showing you how terrible it was for slaves at this time.

That is why I am giving this novel six out of ten.