The story of a mulatta woman, a slave and concubine, determined to take control of her own destiny in a society where that would seem impossible.

Sixty-year-old Louisa Hilliard, the last member of a prominent Charleston family, discovers a diary from the 1830s that recounts the story of an unfairly punished slave named Diana. Louisa senses a presence in her house and sets out to undo past wrongs.

"A picture book biography sharing the inspiring and incredible true story of the nation's oldest student, Mary Walker, who learned to read at the age of 116"--

Set in Ancient Rome, Blood and Sand reimagines Spartacus as a seventeen-year-old girl. When Attia is sold as a slave to the House of Timeus, no one knows she's actually the warrior princess of Thrace, and the last of her people. She is given to Xanthus, a fellow slave and gladiator champion of Rome, as a gift from his master. Attia and Xanthus begin to build a trust through their shared skill in combat and a driving desire to seek revenge on the Roman...

"1863: In a small Creole cottage in New Orleans, an ingenious young Black woman named Stella embroiders intricate maps on repurposed cloth to help enslaved men flee and join the Union Army. Bound to a man who would kill her if he knew of her clandestine activities, Stella has to hide not only her efforts but her love for William, a Black soldier and a brilliant musician. Meanwhile, in New York City, a Jewish woman stitches a quilt for her husband,...

"Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mother's position as the estate's medicine woman and cherished by the Master's sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world. She'd been promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Pheby is forced to leave the...

Torn by the love for a handsome aristocrat, a young slave girl clings to her faith in the living God for deliverance from the forces of decadent Rome.

"Sitting in the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture is a rough cotton bag, called "Ashley's Sack," embroidered with just a handful of words that evoke a sweeping family story of loss and of love passed down through generations. In 1850s South Carolina, just before nine-year-old Ashley was sold, her mother, Rose, gave her a sack filled with just a few things as a token of her love. Decades later, Ashley's granddaughter,...

"Here's the first thing you need to know about Miss Cathy Williams: I am the daughter of a daughter of a queen and my Mama never let me forget it." Cathy Williams was born and lived a slave until the Union army came and destroyed the only world she had ever known. Separated from her family, she makes the impossible decision: to fight with the Buffalo Soldiers disguised as a man. With courage and wit, Cathy must not only fight for her survival and...