Jennifer Chiaverini, The Sugar Camp Quilt

Jennifer Chiaverini, The Sugar Camp Quilt - In the years prior to the Civil War in Creek Crossing, Pennsylvania, the Grangers, having lost their farm to a flood, have taken refuge with Uncle Jacob, a pious but harsh man. Robert and Lorena Granger hope that when Jacob dies, the farm will go to their son Jonathan who is apprentice to a physician in Baltimore. Teenaged Dorothea is the dutiful niece going so far as to make a quilt for her uncle when he requests a specific pattern.

When her uncle dies, she learns that Jacob was an abolitionist and his Sugar Camp was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Dorothea and her parents vow to continue Jacob's work, knowing if they are caught, they could lose the farm and go to jail. Once her beau Cyrus Pearson learns that Dorothea didn't inherit anything from her uncle, he drops her and becomes engaged to another woman. When slave catchers threaten Dorothea and the slaves she is helping to free, she turns to her nemesis Thomas Nelson for aid and learns that love can creep up on a person.

Jennifer Chiaverini captures the ambience of Pennsylvania in the years prior to the Civil War. Readers learn the fears and anxiety the conductors of the Underground Railroad feel as they try to outwit slave catchers and those who help them for bounty. Dorothea is a brave and realistic heroine who, along with her family, needs to star in future historicals.

Harriet Klausner