Jen K’s Review #11: The House Girl

This is another novel set up with the two timeline style that seems to be popular, especially for historical fiction. In this case, the past is 1852, and focuses on Josephine, a seventeen year old house slave at the Bell estate, who decides to run. The modern day piece follows Carolina “Lina” Sparrow, first year associate at a corporate law firm in New York. Her mother is dead, and her father is an artist that has finally found success. After 20 years of not talking about her mother, her father is finally ready to discuss her with Lina and his latest show focuses entirely on portrayals of her mother Grace. At this same time, she gets a huge case focusing on slavery and reparations – their client runs a large business and his connections tell him the government is ready to issue an apology, so he wants to capitalize on this opportunity. Given her connection to the art world, Lina hears about Josephine Bell and Lu Ann Bell – after years of lauding Lu Ann as a great artist that captured the reality of slavery with portraits of plantation life, experts have started to believe that it was Josephine’s hand behind the brush rather than Mistress Bell’s.  Full review and minor rant. – I really love the cover, though.