Tracie Peterson & Judith Miller, A Love Woven True

A Love Woven True

Tracie Peterson & Judith Miller

Bethany, Jan 2005, $12.99, 352 pp.

ISBN: 0764228951

In 1849, Lowell, Massachusetts, widowed Jasmine Houston and her two-year-old son Spencer are making new friends to include a closer relationship with her brother-in-law Nolan, an antislavery author. Jasmine has also finally committed herself to work against slavery by becoming a conductor on the Underground Railroad. She has regained her equilibrium and balance lost during her marriage to the late Bradley.

Her father requests she come home to the Willows in Mississippi because her mother and her Mammy are deathly ill and want to see her. Nolan accompanies his sister-in-law and nephew on the trek south. At the Willows, Mammy obtains a deathbed vow from Jasmine to free her son, which she does before returning to Lowell. However, ethical deeds do not prevent bad things happening to good people as her son is abducted, perhaps for her allowing escaped slaves to hide on her farm; feeling like Job without his faith, Jasmine questions all in which she believes.

Book two of the Lights of Lowell series (see A TAPESTRY OF HOPE) is a terrific, historical tale that brings to life a bygone era when people had to choose sides. Jasmine is a fabulous protagonist raised on a Southern plantation by parents who owned slaves, and had one Mammy raise her. Interestingly, the thriving mill city of Lowell in Northern Massachusetts is divided over slavery as the town depends on cotton from the south to keep the textile mills running and competitive with England. A LOVE WOVEN TRUE is a deep look at mid-nineteenth-century America at least in two fronts as states, communities and families are divided over slavery.

Harriet Klausner