The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

Kathleen Grissom is the author of The Kitchen House, set in the late 1700s-early 1800s on a tobacco plantation in Virginia. A child, Lavinia, has arrived in America from Ireland, orphaned on the ocean journey and separated from her older brother, Cardigan. Captain Pyke brings her to his household at Tall Oaks as an indentured servant and she quickly bonds with the black slaves, considering them her “adopted” family. Later she is brought to “The Big House” and struggles with how she is treated as opposed to the other slaves in the household. After a family tragedy, Lavinia accompanies her mistress to Williamsburg and years later, with education and training, she catches the eye of the new young master of Tall Oaks. Returning as his wife, she quickly learns Master Marshall is not the man she thought he was, and she is now as trapped as the black slaves she still thinks of as family.