These are independent reviews of the products mentioned, but TIME receives a commission when purchases are made through affiliate links at no additional cost to the purchaser.

Set in the Caribbean around the time of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1834, Eleanor Shearer’s dynamic debut follows Rachel, a “freed” slave on a Barbados plantation. But Rachel is not truly free—her master says she is now one of his apprentices and isn’t allowed to leave. So she runs, fleeing the threat of a life of indentured servitude in search of the five children who were taken from her and sold. As Rachel undertakes a brutal journey from Barbados into the forests of British Guiana and across the sea to Trinidad, River Sing Me Home weaves together a historical accounting of the perils of British emancipation with a moving interrogation of what freedom really means. —Megan McCluskey

Buy Now: River Sing Me Home on Bookshop | Amazon

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com.

Tremor
Yellowface
Tom Lake
The Guest
All the Sinners Bleed
5 stories
EDIT POST