I really enjoyed reading this book. I was never aware of Jewish communities in the antebellum south and I learned much from reading this. The look at slavery is heartbreaking, but it happened and the author has written a story that encompasses the lives of two sisters, one of them is a slave. There is love, friendship, and hard times.
Many thanks to Lake Union Publishing and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This a beautifully written, fascinating story of two half-sisters, one the daughter of a well-to-do cotton farmer, the other the daughter of a slave woman working on his plantation. The young slave girl is raised as a housemaid and companion to the cotton magnate’s daughter, the two becoming fast friends.
This is a story of deception, treachery, love of family, and forgiveness that takes place just before and during the Civil War. It is a tale that is full of emotion and turmoil. The characters are all wonderful in their own ways, the story captivating. At times, I felt as if I were there on the plantation with them. A very powerful and moving story detailing the hardships and sacrifices many suffered during this period of history as well as the strength of spirit, resilience, and commitment that saw them through these difficulties.
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I didn't finish this one. It didn't grip my attention, the characters were not believable and the research that went into this is not wholesome.

Good read. Liked the different characters and story flow. Like books set in different times in history and getting an author's perspective of that time. Interesting idea of one white, one black sister during a war.

Adelaide is the cossetted daughter of the Mannheims, raised in rural northern Georgia, in the years before the Civil War, the only other Jews she knows she visits over the Holidays in Savannah. Her father, she is slow to learn, is a cotton speculator, a cotton planter, and he owns many slaves. He loves her maid, and friend Rachel, a slave, who she is also slow to comprehend, is her sister. Rachel is not slow to comprehend anything. Adelaide marries a German Jew, who her father sets up as a planter, at ruinous terms. While Henry doesn’t want to be a slave owner, one can’t grow cotton without slaves. I quite enjoyed this historical novel.

Two sisters -- one Black -- one White -- one free -- one a slave. This story not only deals with the predicament of the offspring of slave and master and the relationships that result. It also gives an interesting perspective on Judaism in the antebellum South. For lovers of historical fiction, it is a treasure!

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for this free readers edition. In exchange I am providing an honest review.

We all know about the slave owners from the 1800's but we hear very little about a population of slave owners, Jewish people. It seems odd right? Jews who have been oppressed by slavery themselves owning slaves. Yet, there were several Jewish plantation owners - and other business owners - in the 1800's South that owned slaves and like other white owners treated them just the same in regards to whipping, etc.
Massa Mannheim is the largest plantation owner in the county and his daughter Adelaide needs a servant. So he chooses his other daughter, a slave, Rachel to be Adelaide's help. It's his way of protecting Rachel even though Adelaide's mama sees red every time she is around Rachel. The girls grow up together, Adelaide breaking the law and teaching Rachel how to read and write - Rachel caring for Adelaide more as a sister than a servant. As the time draws nearer for Adelaide to seriously consider marriage Rachel has to think seriously about her own life as a slave. She knows she is a slave but is rarely treated as one so it is shocking to realize that she cannot have her own life. She cannot marry who she loves, any children she ever have would be born owned by whoever was her owner, she has no choice. That's hard to take as she watches her sister have choice and exercise her choice - which leads to consequences for Adelaide that in that day were detrimental to her future as anyone's wife. But finally along comes Henry Kaltenbach. Wanting to make more than he is in a dry goods store, Henry decides to become a cotton grower even though he is one of the few Jewish people to be uncomfortable and reluctant to own slaves. He decides if he has to own them then so be it but he doesn't have to treat them as anything but his equal - that's his business. The entrance of Henry into the lives of the Mannheim sisters, Adelaide and Rachel, will change everything for all of them and Emancipation becomes more and more of a reality for the black people of the South.
I really enjoyed this story. Waldfogel took some actual events, such as Jewish people being slave owners in the South, and crafted a story out of it - one that didn't happen but possibly could have. She described the conundrum of a Jewish person owning slaves, of love that doesn't care about skin color or even religious preference, and of a bond between sisters that is hard to ignore. It was a really engaging story - walking that fine line between too much and not enough detail. It was just right. Her characters were easy to get to know and the storylines were believable. I personally have never thought about the slave owners of the South being anything but Protestant so to discover some were actually Jewish was new information for me - distressing actually but informative. Just another indicator that humanity struggles to live up to their potential.

This historical novel begins with a scene when two Union soldiers get separated from their scouting party and notice a Union flag on a well kept plantation. Approaching the house, they find a group of people gathered on the porch. A white woman and several black women and men. They are welcomed, fed, and their wounds are treated.
The story then jumps back twelve years to 1852, when Adelaide Mannheim, daughter of Mordecai Mannheim, a Jewish planter in northern Georgia was given her own maid, a slave named Rachel. The two girls become friends, much to the annoyance of Adelaide's mother, and soon realize that Rachel is also Mordecai's child, which explains Adelaide's mother's feelings toward her. Mordecai is a businessman, trading in many goods besides what he grows on his plantation, and he is pleased when Rachel shows an aptitude for figures as well, quizzing her when she has been tidying his study. Adelaide has secretly taught her to read as well.
When Adelaide gets to be a young lady, her mother insists that she leave school and travel to Savannah, where there is a large Jewish community, to find a suitor. Adelaide quickly meets a young man that she likes, but both her and Rachel discover that they are naive when it comes to relationships. When things go badly, both retire to the plantation, where Rachel learns more, and Adelaide's health suffers. A new opportunity for both leads them to new beginnings, but also more heartache and gradually they form a new different relationship.
This is a story of slavery and the realities of life in the South during the plantation era. While it is fiction, it is based in fact. Many Jews in the south did own slaves, as they adjusted to the society they moved into. As slave-owners, they ran the gamut from kind to cruel.
Many children were born into slavery despite being fathered by the white men who owned their mothers, growing up alongside their half-siblings, but with few of the advantages.
This book has depth for both the plot and the characters, and I found it enlightening.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this publication.