Sylvia Ann McLain

Jenny is Free Sylvia Ann McLain

"Jenny is Free" -- Book Two of the "Spinning Jenny" series. "There's runaways all over the place in Cincinnati, and there's slave-catchers all over the place there, too. They'd come right in on a pretty young thing like you. And there's a slave-catcher right here on this boat..."Natchez 1841. Jenny has always yearned for freedom. But when her master Cornelius Carson abruptly sets her free and hands her a steamboat ticket to Cincinnati, free soil, she is completely alone. She is leaving behind everything and everyone she knows. At seventeen, what future awaits her? Then she hears a familiar voice among the passengers on the steamer: "Hey Jenny.""Walker?"An old acquaintance, Walker Jackson persuades her to return with him to Carefree, the abandoned Natchez estate of her childhood. Only one person still lives there: Esther, a slave woman. Not long after newlywed Cornelius unexpectedly inherits Carefree, Jenny's budding romance with a Creole, Adrien Jean-Pierre, is at a crossroads; but she ignores her misgivings and follows him to New Orleans, where she fashions a new life for herself among the free people there. But ultimately she realizes that Carefree is her destiny. Part coming-of-age novel, part mystery, with romance and a hint of ghosts, "Jenny is Free" follows Jenny and the people of her world as they pursue their dreams in the midst of a slave-holding society.