I discovered this book via mutual "likings" of blogs. Sound good, love a bit of Scotland and history so I bought both of Sinclair's titles. This one arrived today. Still waiting for the other.

I realised after I'd started this, that it is a subsequent book set later than Sinclair's Mermaid and Bear, which I've not read. I didn't find this a problem in reading this book and I'm guessing it's more of a standalone tale than part of a saga.

Set in the 1740s, it starts in Aberdeenshire, but the bulk of the book is set in the US, in Pennsylvania if I remember correctly. It follows teenager Elizabeth who is of a rich landed family who are supporting the Jaccobite cause (sadly, we know our history and know that isn't going to end well - Cullodon hasn't happened yet). She heads into Aberdeen with the staff as her father has said she can buy herself a new horse. Whilst there, she ends up down at the docks and rather naively is persuaded to step on board a ship, where she is thrown in a sack and kidnapped. You'd be forgiven for thinking it might be to do with her family, but it's not. I didn't realise this, but a lot of children were kidnapped in Aberdeen at this time and sailed over to the states to be sold into "indenture" (a form of slavery that you worked off in a few years). I knew that British people had been sent over to the Carribean and States in different forms of slavery to work on plantations, in fact I was only recently reading about the vagrancy laws (nasty piece of legislation - easy for people to fall into this category) and how vagrants were rounded up and sent abroad and had to work off seven years. But the kidnapping of children for personal profit is particularly horrible. Still, history isn't a kind place to look. Just consider the press gangs of the navy, the child labour used in mines and mills...

But back to the story.
Elizabeth is bought by Mrs Sauer and sent to work at the plantation owner's house as a cook/housekeeper on a tobacco plantation. But Elizabeth is strong willed and speaks her mind thinks later and soon starts changes on the plantation for the better. People help her to write letters home so that she might get help to go home, and also help find Peter Williamson, a lad that was kidnapped the same time as she, and whom she has decided is her one true love in a rather girlish way. This being the 1700s it takes months and months for letters to get anywhere, so it is some years before all of this is brought to conclusion. In the meantime there is plantation life and a sweet, but predictable love story.

Elizabeth did really grow on me and I enjoyed reading the story from her perspective, as this is first person narration. There's a mix of standard English and dialect... as anyone knows, I find dialect written in books a bit grating, but I did get used to it here. The Aberdeen and transportation on the ship part felt a bit rushed somehow for me and not enough detail and atmosphere. For me the most enjoyable part, and the bulk of the book to be fair, is set in the US. It would have been nice to read more about these abductions and also the fight against the Aberdeen magistrates who had allowed it to happen - but that would be a different book and not Elizabeth's story.

But then this is one of the reasons I love historical fiction. It brings random little bits of history back to life and accessible for a new audience so that they are not forgotten.

Posting as a surprise to a friend in Iceland.

Thanks so much for this lovely surprise :)

I´m sorry to say that I gave up on this book, it just did not hold my attention. I feel a bit frustrated with myself as this seems like a very interesting book. Hope the next reader will like it more :)

Sending this book to a friend in Northern Ireland :)