LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
One of our Books of the Year 2013.
Renowned author of Girl with a Pearl Earring turns to the American slave trade for her next historical drama. A young, naïve English Quaker in 1850’s Ohio is torn between her conscience and the law. She befriends runaway slaves, helping them escape to Canada through secret routes and safe houses. Plucky, strong women dominate this very fine book. It’s a good insight into the early Quaker settlers’ lives and the dark period of American history just prior to the Civil War, beautifully written in a ponderous read.
The Lovereading view...
Set in Ohio in 1850, the stunning new novel from the bestselling author of Girl With a Pearl Earring examines belief, duty and conscience against the backdrop of slavery. Quaker Honor Bright sails to America in the hope of a new life but finds little physical comfort in the harsh lands of Ohio or spritual sanctury in the Quaker community she settles in. Hailed as her best work since Girl with the Pearl Earring, The Last Runaway is a very satisfying read.
Reviewed by Sarah BroadhurstSarah Broadhurst spent her early working life in the book trade in both retail and wholesale until the arrival of children forced her to look for freelance work she could do from…
More reviews by Sarah Broadhurst About The Last Runaway
New York Times bestselling author of Girl With a Pearl Earring and At the Edge of the Orchard Tracy Chevalier makes her first fictional foray into the American past in The Last Runaway, bringing to life the Underground Railroad and illuminating the principles, passions and realities that fueled this extraordinary freedom movement.
Read the full description
Find This Book In
About
The Last Runaway Synopsis
New York Times bestselling author of Girl With a Pearl Earring and At the Edge of the Orchard Tracy Chevalier makes her first fictional foray into the American past in The Last Runaway, bringing to life the Underground Railroad and illuminating the principles, passions and realities that fueled this extraordinary freedom movement.
Honor Bright, a modest English Quaker, moves to Ohio in 1850-only to find herself alienated and alone in a strange land. Sick from the moment she leaves England, and fleeing personal disappointment, she is forced by family tragedy to rely on strangers in a harsh, unfamiliar landscape. Nineteenth-century America is practical, precarious, and unsentimental, and scarred by the continuing injustice of slavery.
In her new home Honor discovers that principles count for little, even within a religious community meant to be committed to human equality.
However, Honor is drawn into the clandestine activities of the Underground Railroad, a network helping runaway slaves escape to freedom, where she befriends two surprising women who embody the remarkable power of defiance. Eventually she must decide if she too can act on what she believes in, whatever the personal costs.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780142180365 |
| Publication date: |
29th October 2013 |
| Author: |
Tracy Chevalier |
| Publisher: |
Penguin Books an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
320 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction
|
| Other Genres: |
|
| Recommendations: |
|
Press Reviews
Tracy Chevalier Press Reviews
Praise for The Last Runaway:
'I have always admired Tracy Chevalier's un-showy brilliance, and this moving story of a young English Quaker girl trapped between duty and conscience in 1850s Ohio is the best thing she's written since Girl with a Pearl Earring
Rose Tremain
'The Last Runaway is a joy to read. Chevalier handles the intersection of two stories - those of pioneering Quakers and escaping slaves - with verve, imagination and, above all, compassion'
Maggie O'Farrell
'A brave, warm-hearted, moving book; the characters are well-drawn and credible; the local colour meticulously detailed'
Joanne Harris
Praise for Girl with a Pearl Earring:
'Chevalier's writing skill and her knowledge of seventeenth-century Delft are such that she creates a world reminiscent of a Vermeer interior: suspended in a particular moment, it transcends its time and place'
New Yorker
'Chevalier's book is a delight'
Simon Jenkins, Guardian
'This is a wonderful novel, mysterious, steeped in atmosphere. It is deeply revealing about the process of painting...a truly magical experience.'
Guardian
'This is a novel which deserves, and I am sure will win, a prize - or two.'
Times
'A portrait of radiance...Tracy Chevalier brings the real artist Vermeer and a fictional muse to life in a jewel of a novel.'
Time
'It has a slow, magical current of its own that picks you up and carries you stealthily along...a beautiful story, lovingly told by a very talented writer.'
Daily Mail
Author
About Tracy Chevalier
Tracy Chevalier is the author of six previous novels, including the international bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Virgin Blue, Falling Angels, The Lady and the Unicorn, Burning Bright and Remarkable Creatures. Born in Washington, DC, she moved to London in 1984, where she lives with her husband and son.
The film of Girl with a Pearl Earring, starring Colin Firth as Vermeer, was released in the UK in January. It was nominated for 10 BAFTAs and two Academy Awards.
Photograph © Eammon McCabe
More About Tracy Chevalier
