Excerpt from River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Still the question plagued her-

What now?

It had a weary edge, a hopelessness. Her run from Providence had been pure survival. Now, she wandered aimlessly through the undergrowth; there was no path, and she stumbled over exposed roots. Her head throbbed with thirst and her limbs were heavy, but her body kept carrying her forward, away from Providence. Apart from the soft thud of her feet on the bare earth, the only sounds were the chattering grackles that flitted overhead.

She climbed the gentle slope of a hill. When she reached the top, suddenly there was the sea. The sight of it spread out below stopped Rachel in her tracks. She had reached the limits of the island.

The rising sun dipped its lower rays into the water on the horizon. Against the gray sky, the sea was a shocking shade of blue, dappled with white-gold sunlight. Its burst of color cut loose the fear that had wrapped itself around Rachel's throat the night before. As if she had plunged into the gently rolling waves, she felt at peace.

All her life, nothing had belonged to her, not even the children pushed out of her own body. With her world boxed in by Providence's walls, and its perimeter patrolled by the overseer's whip, it had seemed as if there was nothing the white men did not own. But now, here was the sea. Vast, defiant and unowned, for who, even white men, could claim it? However much they grasped at it, its waters would run through their fingers and plunge back into the depths.

At the plantation, Rachel had always been made to feel small. With the sea spread out in front of her, she felt small in a different way-not small in herself but a small part of everything that surrounded her. Immersed in the infinite sea. There was freedom in this new kind of smallness, an exhilarating sense that she was in the world, and not just passing through it at a white man's pace.

The question came to mind once again-

What now?

This time it had a new quality—it looked forward, outward, across the water. Not back over her shoulder to anyone who might be pursuing her.

Excerpted from River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer. Copyright © 2023 by Eleanor Shearer. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.