I do not mean to scare off children thinking that this is a
kids’ book or a kids’ series, because they should know damned well by now it is
not. Young adult, yeah maybe, in the same sense His Dark Materials is young adult. But people actually let children
read this stuff! It just blows my mind.
Oh man, anyway, plot revolves around Cavil Planter seeing a
vision of an angel that is eerily similar to the one Reverend Thrower saw in
book one, the one that instructed him to kill Alvin. This angel says that the
white man can conquer and civilize the blacks, but it will take a long time.
Whipping them into shape, literally, is one way. But another is not to allow
them to reproduce within the slave quarters, and instead slowly start to purify
the bloodlines but producing whiter and whiter babies. That is where slave-rape
comes in. And after his first, she runs away, uses her black magic she learnt
from her time in Africa (her father was a witch-doctor) to turn into a raven
and fly away with the newborn babe.
She dies and the babe is to be raised by the folks at
Hatrack River, the same ones that helped Alvin come into this world. She is
found by Peggy’s father, who is running an underground railroad of sorts and
helping runaways escape the slave laws of the southern and Crown colonies, and
helping them get to Canada! But this baby will never make it. It all goes down
as Alvin is on his way to become a prentice, a year late and fully recovered
from his capture by Tenskwa-Tawa.
This forces Peggy the Torch to flee the area, not wishing to
let Alvin ruin her life or allow herself to ruin his. So he enters his
apprenticeship, and works through much of it, without knowing how much she does
for him. He befriends her family as well as young Arthur Stewart, who is named
after the King of England as a joke to diss the King of England…I think. Not
real sure.
Anyway, his master, Makepeace Smith, is a real asshole. And
slave owners who are down 2 slaves with the runaway who took her baby with her
go after Arthur, fueled by a chance meeting between the two most disgusting
people in the series thus far: Reverend Philadelphia Thrower and Cavil “Slave
Rapin” Planter. Rev. Thrower knows Alvin all too well, and has updates from
friends of his family that he is in the limelight for befriending the “mix up
boy,” as everyone refers to Arthur. This is all Cavil needs to send Slave
Finders out.
Finders have the knack of being able to identify people
based on a bit of hair, or skin, or blood you give them and let them carry
around. They’re like fucking bloodhounds or something. And obviously, because
this is America, they use their knack for money in the sickest way possible.
Peggy comes back, eventually, in a disguise that helps her
be known to everyone only as Mrs. Larner, a middle-aged school teacher for
hire. She teaches in Hatrack River and then takes on Arthur, more in the role
of tutor as he is disallowed form school, but also teaches Alvin. Obviously, he
falls in love with her and Finders come about and shit gets real, and death
that will surely start more trouble ensues. The book ends with Alvin leaving
Makepeace to become a Journeyman, he and Makepeace are real enemies by this
point, and Alvin sets out on his own for the first time. But not before more
rape involving slaves, only this time it is slaves raping white women. What a
way to cap off a pretty intense book for this series. Definitely caught me off
guard.
Cheers! Can’t wait for Book Four!
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