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Angels Make Their Hope Here

Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available
Russell's Knob is not paradise. But already in 1849 this New Jersey highlands settlement is home to a diverse population of blacks, whites, and reds who have intermarried and lived in relative harmony for generations. It is a haven for Dossie Bird, who has escaped north along the Underground Railroad and now feels the embrace of the Smoot family.
Duncan Smoot presides as accidental patriarch, protector of his enterprising sister, Hattie, and his two rambunctious nephews. As Dossie busies herself with cleaning, cooking, and tending the chickens at Duncan's homestead, she wonders: Could this man, her rescuer — so godlike in her eyes, so much older than she — expect her to become his helpmeet?. Tentatively, Dossie begins to put down roots — until a shocking act of violence propels her away from Russell's Knob and eventually into the mayhem of New York City's mean streets.
With the same storytelling brio that distinguished the acclaimed novels River, Cross My Heart and Stand the Storm, Breena Clarke weaves a richly dramatic story of interracial harmony in the Civil War era — and of one woman's triumph in the crucible of history.
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    • Booklist

      July 1, 2014
      In the particularly dangerous period before emancipation, a band of free blacks and mixed-race people had for generations carved for themselves a haven from racial animosity in the backwoods area of New Jersey they called Russell's Knob. Into this isolated and tucked-away territory, patriarch Duncan Smoots brought Dossie, a small young girl he'd rescued from slaveholders. Admired and envied, the people of Russell's Knob were fiercely independent of the town and others. Quiet by nature, Dossie makes a home for herself under the protection of Duncan, but she grows increasingly aware that she has upset the social structure of the Knob. When she blossoms into a beautiful young woman, she stirs emotions among the nephews and triggers a rift in the social fabric of the Knob. Set in the years leading up to the Civil War, in settings from the wilds of New Jersey to the streets of New York during the draft riots, Clarke's novel offers fascinating characters coping with heritage, identity, and complicated relationships.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

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