WOW. This was really an epic story that absolutely transported me to pre-Revolutionary War America. The reader follows the story of two indentured servants that were sent to America to serve out sentences as indentured servants.

The writing was evocative and brought to light such stressors of poverty, hunger, and injustices. Excellent.

This book has been a great listening experience. Thanks to the author and the publisher for bringing this book to life.

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. Interesting novel. If you like reading about historical events you might want to check this one out.

I really enjoyed Sarah-Jane Drummey's reading of Freedom Dues, The feeling really came through with each word spoken. The history mentioned how truths were twisted into what the Have's persist as their property and the Have-nots should fall in line with. Those who had the vantage points seemed to get ahead but patience, maintainging values and perserverance can lead to a better life in this time. The community presented were great and kept you looking for more that was to come. Thank you NetGalley for this experiance.

This book had me hooked from the very start. I just loved the story line it was so amazing and unique. I listened to the audiobook and loved the narrator with her brilliant accent. She created so much atmosphere and tension. That I had to binge read this book. I really connected with the characters and found myself willing them on and really feeling their emotions. This is quite a shocking story with quite a few twists and turns I was on the edge of my seat. I felt the author did an amazing job at portraying convict slavery. I really would recommend this book to every one who loves to read books that will shock you.

I will definitely be looking out for more books by this author. 

So much praise goes out to the author and publishing team for bringing us this brilliant and gripping historical fiction book. Its a real page turner.

The above review has already been placed on goodreads, waterstones, Google books, Barnes&noble, kobo, amazon UK where found and my blog https://ladyreading365.wixsite.com/website/post/freedom-dues-by-indra-zuno-ibpa-indie-book-5-stars
Either under my name or ladyreading365 or lady Reading365 or ladyc reading

To be honest, while I do read quite a bit, across the board and across several different genres, this period in time is not one I'm overly familiar with (1730's) and I did learn quite a bit about this time period in history for those who were not the upper elites of society. Indra Zuno definitely shows that she has done a thorough job researching this time frame. This was a hard read (well, listen since I had the audiobook version narrated by Sarah-Jane Drummey), not because of the story line itself being made up of fictional characters, but because it's all based on historical facts that happened to real people in the past, and that's a hard truth to embrace. It seemed as though Blair and Mallie, even though they were walking different paths and ended up in the same type of punishment of indentured servitude for different crimes, they just couldn't catch a break no matter what they did nor how much they had hoped for, and while their journey was very brutal to body, spirit, and soul, the question stands for all of humanity, which is do you have what it takes to survive against all odds. A job well done by Indra Zuno.
*I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. This review is my own opinion*

3.25 stars

I haven’t read too many historical fictions from the 1700’s so this was a refreshing glimpse into history that was relatively new for me. I’d heard of indentured workers shipped from overcrowded urban environments in London to various parts of the world as farm hands and house servants. This was a particularly well documented account of two Irish people who become indentured slaves…and I use the word slaves because this is exactly how they were treated.

Mallie is only a young child when she is caught pickpocketing in London. She was abandoned by her mother and stealing to survive. As her punishment, she is sent to Maryland to work on a plantation as an indentured slave for 7 years. Young 15 year old Blair is living in Ireland with no money, no food or employment prospects. He and his brother volunteer themselves to work as indentured servants for several years in order to secure a more hopeful life in Philadelphia. These two stories eventually merge.

The historical details were gripping. It reminded me of slavery at the plantations in the southern US. Similar living conditions, punishments, controls and brutal violence. However, what was astonishingly different is that people voluntarily signed themselves up and agreed to the terms despite it all. Granted, they were leaving desperate situations and trapped once they arrived but still quite shocking.

Where the audiobook fell short for me was in the character development. I never quite connected with the MC’s thus felt emotionally removed from their circumstances. I wanted to be pulled in more and feel their experiences with them. The narration was average. I find single narration to be challenging when there’s more than one perspective going on. This book could have used a dual narration to spice it up a bit.

Overall a phenomenal look at slavery in the eighteenth century. Folks that are okay reading about violence including sexual assault will probably get a lot from this story.
I received an advanced copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed it. I don't know how historically accurate it is but it was a well written and griping story and the narrator did a really good job..

Much thanks to #Netgalley and Spinning Yarn Press for the opportunity to listen to this book.

This is a extremely well done piece of historical fiction. There is nothing pretty about the early 1700s - head to Jane Austen for that. This is about indentured servitude and specifically the Irish coming to the United States. They are a mixed lot - some can afford to pay, some are criminals banished to the United States for often petty crimes and some sign as an indentured servant to pay their voyage - for 4-5-7 + years. A nod to our ancestors.

The author really develops the main characters to a tangible person. From an emotional standpoint there is the brutality, living conditions and strength within them all.

I really enjoyed the audio version. Her voices, tenor and accent all added to the story.

In a Nutshell: Outstanding in its historical details, but why couldn’t the story have included some happy moments too? This was mentally exhausting.

Story:
1729, Ireland. Blaire Eakins is a fifteen year old Scot living during the period of a nationwide famine. (Not the Great Irish Famine, as I had originally assumed, which came more than a century later.) When there is no hope of a better future for him in his town, he decides to accompany his brother to set sail to Philadelphia. As they have no money for passage, they commit to being indentured servants for a period of four years, at the end of which period they would earn their “freedom dues” – payment made in the form of money and some non-cash items to enable to ex-servant to begin a free life. But will things go as easily as planned?
1729, London. Mallie Ambrose, a ten year old orphan, is arrested on charges of pickpocketing. Her sentence is “transportation”, being compelled into indentured servitude and exiled to the American colonies. With no say in the matter, Mallie resigns herself to making the best of her new life in the American continent. Obviously, she too has no idea of what lies ahead for her.
The story is written in a third person narration from the perspective of Blair’s and Mallie’s characters.
The book is divided in four parts, and the two main characters meet only in the final part. Each part covers one phase of their lives.

If you are a fan of history, you will find much to savour in this book. The author’s research is impeccable. She seems to have listed out the details of how life was for the poor in the 1730s in Ireland, London and America and incorporated them extensively in her story. Unfortunately, this is also the undoing of the book. What should have been an enlightening experience borders almost on misery porn. One after another, life keeps throwing curveballs at Blair and Mallie. After a while, you are mentally prepared for the fact that nothing good will ever happen in the book; every scene had to have some negative incident. You name an issue and it is there in the story: rape, corporal punishment, extreme poverty, gender discrimination, biased judiciary, sexual abuse, medical issues, natural disasters such as famines and storms, racist thinking, slavery and slave trade, fires,… There’s a lot more but I got tired of making note of all the catastrophes. I have read Solomon Northup's book, which is the nonfiction account of an actual Black slave, and even that book wasn't so depressing!

(A part of me feels that this happened because it is a debut work. The author has done her research well and she wanted to make sure she used every bit of her work. It reminded me a bit of my MBA project days, when I worked diligently to gather information and I would try my best to include everything in my homework just to show the professor how meticulously I had worked.)

Blair and Mallie are strong characters, though somehow, I never really felt very close to them even after reading the entire book. The writing style somehow keeps them distant. Nevertheless, they do make an impact. Blair especially is interesting in the way he discriminates against Black slaves and Catholics and the Irish (not necessarily in that order) though he himself is an indentured slave. It shows the duality of thinking of the people of those times. (Actually, this duality exists even nowadays; only the categories of discrimination have changed.) The rest of the characters don’t pop up long enough to make a mark on the mind. The story belongs to Blair and Mallie, and it stays that way right till the end.

Minor personal complaint: There was no need to detail out the sex scene so extensively. It was not a requirement of the story, and such superfluous writing just lowers my opinion of it.

The audiobook clocks at about 12 hours and is narrated brilliantly by Sarah-Jane Drummey. She keeps her accents and her enunciation clear. At the same time, this is not an easy book to listen to, not just because of the torturous pain that life keeps inflicting on Blair and Mallie. There are too many characters in Blair’s and Mallie’s lives, and keeping track of who’s who become very difficult after a point. Furthermore, some characters make a reappearance long after their first exit, by which time you have completely forgotten who they were.

I am not quite sure how to rate this book. I admired so much of the author’s dedication to historical detail. However, I would never like to read this again because it was so depressing. If I had to torture myself so much, I would have picked up a historical nonfiction on a difficult topic, whereby I would have been better prepared for the emotional onslaught. I guess I’ll just go a little more midway and stick to 3.5 stars, not because I liked it but because I learned a lot from it.

My thanks to Spinning a Yarn Press and NetGalley for the ALC of “Freedom Dues”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook.

Sorry, this was a DNF for me. I accidently requested it when I hit the "Listen" button. I thought that I was just clicking on the link to preview the narration of the book. Instead, it ended up on my shelf. I tried to get interested in it, but I just couldn't engage.

Rating: 4/5 stars! Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for my opportunity to listen to the audiobook of this wonderful book. The cover and title of the book were eye-catching, but after reading the description, I was definitely intrigued. This historical fiction novel was well researched as it takes the reader to early 1700s Colonial America into the lives of indentured servants. The characters were complex and captivating as they navigated the twists and turns of their lives in this tough time in American history. The narrator of the book is fantastic, as she brought the author's story to life for the listener.

So long for so little.

The synopsis tells the premise. I'm not going to repeat it or give spoilers. Also, I had the audiobook.

Without the synopsis and the first 10% of the book, I would not have recognized inferences to the Irish FamIne. The story could have been about anyone during the time period that was forced to become an indentured servant. The horrors and treatment of human beings by other human beings has been told.

I wanted more history. I kept waiting for it. Each new part I thought here it comes. Unfortunately, a really long, and not realistic group of characters were popping in and out of the story. There were too few characters for the amount of abuse the author wanted me to believe they individually experienced. While I didn't want more characters, I did want realistic storytelling.

This is a miss for me. However, I did enjoy the brief mention of Catholicism and Protestant hatred. It was a reminder, something I had forgotten. The title of the book captures exactly the point of the story.

The narrator was good.

At the conclusion, I was mentally exhausted. There were too many hours that read blah, blah, blah.

Thank you NetGalley, Spinning A Yarn Press and Indra Zuno for accepting my request to read and review Freedom Dues.

#NetGalley
#SpinningAYarnPress
#IndraZuno
#FreedomDues

The narrators of this book were amazing. I loved the story. I really enjoyed the two timelines and how they intertwined. I immediately loved Blair. He reminded me of myself a little bit. Always trying to do the right thing. It took me a while to take to Mallie but I grew to love her so much. She was a little firecracker.
Once Blair and Mallie's story intertwine my heart just grew. This historical fiction broke my heart so many times and put it back together again.
I highly recommend this book and the audiobook is absolutely amazing.

I am so happy I was able to listen to this book through NetGalley “listen now” audio books.. I am not sure the title would have peaked my interest, but the description certainly did. I loved the duel storyline. One storyline was reminiscent of The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline while the other was well developed based on the Irish Immigrant experience early in the formation of the United States. I highly recommend this book for historical fiction fans.

The voice of the narrator threw me a little bit as what I did listen to sounded a little robotic and didn’t have a lot of emotion. On top of that the author clearly wrote out the accents for these characters which is a BIG pet peeve of mine.Overall it was uninteresting and I couldn’t help but zone out at parts.

Blair Eakins is an Ulster-Scot from Ireland who goes to America to earn some money and bring his family out of famine and poverty. Mallie Ambrose is a ten-year-old from London who is caught with a group of pickpockets while stealing a silk handkerchief and is sentenced to transportation.

Both arrive in America, not knowing what they will find there. Blair is even hopeful. But both of them are signed to indentures that have them serving for seven years with their respective masters.

During their stay at their workplaces, both Blair and Mallie witness and undergo unimaginable tortures. Eventually, they both are hired by the same master and they fall in love in each other almost immediately.

But after an unfortunate incident, they have to flee and actually use the help of the Indians who are viewed as villains by the rest of the society. Will Blair and Mallie be able to live a normal life ever again?

I was amazed at the amount of research the author has put in. 1729 seems ancient to me and I hadn't read a single book set in this period before this one. The story is good too though it would have been better if the author had included some happy moments for the main characters as well. As it is, the book seems to be an unending set of misfortunes descending upon Blair and Mallie.

4 stars.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Sarah-Jane Drummey has a beautiful voice and was such a pleasure to listen to through this book!

The book itself was very engrossing with only a couple of unbelievable spots. All of the characters were well thought out and wonderfully described.

1729: Blair Eakins is a fifteen-year-old Ulster-Scot living in Ireland under the crushing weight of famine, poverty, and prejudice against his people. In search of a better future for himself and his beloved, he pays for passage to the American colonies the only way he can: he commits himself as an indentured servant for a term of four years, having no idea what he's in for. His rough ocean crossing is only the beginning of a new life of hardships in Philadelphia.

In London, ten-year-old orphan pickpocket Mallie Ambrose is arrested for stealing a handkerchief. After experiencing the horror of Newgate prison, she is sentenced to "Transportation," bound into indentured servitude and exiled to the American colonies. Once in Maryland, she is sold to a tyrannical tobacco planter for seven years.

As Blair and Mallie each endure hellish conditions, their paths eventually cross when they are acquired by the same owner. After Blair steps in to defend Mallie from their cruel master, the two escape and head west, finding unlikely allies among the Delaware Indians. But as fugitives without rights, they live in constant fear of capture.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook in return for an honest review.

I enjoyed the story thoroughly it was educational, heartbreaking and really well researched it took me quite a while to read/listen though even as an Irish Scot I found the narration quite difficult to grasp, I’m loathed to say as I tried really hard to get with it. That said, don’t let that put you off because the story itself is brilliant.

Oh my goodness! Another great historical fiction to put on my list of good reads. Freedom Dues was narrated by Sarah-Jane Drummey and she was amazing. She brought something really special to an already wonderful tale. And honestly I don’t know how people didn’t die from heartbreak.
So many unfair things took place in this and I really don’t think I’d have survived back then. And if you’re wondering, it is a HEA. The beginning dragged a tiny bit but I was rewarded with a moving tale of love, loss and new beginnings.
I highly recommend this if you like historical fiction.
Thanks IBPA via NetGalley.