Charleston's Daughter (The Low Country Series Book 1)

I enjoy stories that take place around the time of the Civil War. “Charleston’s Daughter” by Sabra Waldfogel takes place just before the start of the war. All of Charlston’s residents are wary of all Negroes, both slave and free. They have specific laws regarding what they can do and where they can go. There is also the unwritten code of conduct between master and slave.In Ms. Waldfogel’s book, we are given a look at how some plantation owners take slaves as their mistresses and have children with them who are brought up right along with the children of their white wives. In this novel James Jarvie, a plantation owner, has taken a beautiful slave as his wife and has a daughter by her. Of course, he cannot be seen in Charlston society with her and secretes his family on St. Helena Island, away from everyone else. They live as husband, wife and daughter in the grand manner of the times. Her father teaches Caroline to read and she is conversant with the works of Cicero and Cato. All is well and they are reasonably happy, although excluded from others.Their lives are irrevocably changed after James dies of yellow fever and his brother is named in his will as inheriting everything, even Catherine and Caroline. James intended that his brother treat his wife and daughter with the same love and consideration that he had. However, this is not the case. Both Catherine and Caroline are made to live as the lowliest slave. All of their clothing, books, jewelry and their very freedom are gone.I read this book with tears in my eyes that a group of people could be so horribly treated as the freedmen and slaves during this time in America’s history. Their animals were treated with more consideration than they. I’m sure that this story could definitely have happened this way. What a story this was! I hope Ms. Waldfogel writes more in this genre. I would love to read more of this way of life.

Charleston’s Daughter by Sabra Waldfogel is a tale of two cousins in the Lowcountry of South Carolina in the years shortly before the Civil War. Caro is the quadroon daughter of a slave kept as a wife by a loving plantation owner; Caro grows up being served by the other slaves, wearing fine clothes and being educated—but all is not well, as she lacks the society she craves.Spoiler Alert:When Caro’s father dies suddenly of yellow fever, Caro’s situation changes dramatically. The Jarvies are embarrassed and insulted even by the existence of Caro and her mother—all except for Emily Jarvie, who is horrified at her cousin’s ill-treatment and wants to help her.Waldfogel provides best-case scenarios again and again—which she shows to still be intrinsically terrible. So though a slaveowner might truly fall in love with a slave, and vice versa, laws made it very difficult if not impossible for slaveowners to free their slaves, eventually ruining the future for themselves and/or their offspring. The institution of slavery could not be entirely overcome by individual households. Caro’s father really did love his ‘wife’ and daughter and tried to make provisions for them in his will, which his brother then chose to ignore/misinterpret, putting her and her mother on an almost-abandoned property where they are destitute but live with a freedom I can’t imagine many slaves possessed. It was still terrible. And then, when Caro is finally going to be forced to be a house servant—a fate infinitely better than being a field hand—you are with her in wanting her to escape that horrible fate of bowing and scraping to people who have no respect for her, who bully her into ‘behaving’. I really do appreciate Waldfogel giving this almost fairytale situation for Caro (in comparison to the very real and much worse situations for many slaves), and yet still showing how awful it was, nevertheless. What’s lovely about this is that it cuts out the conceivably-valid arguments against worst-case scenarios of ‘it wasn’t that bad for most of them’ or ‘but they were considered family’ or some such.Now for my issues with the novel! My biggest gripe may not be the author’s fault at all. The narrator read so many lines of several of the female characters in the most whiny, ugly, accusatory tones imaginable. Tones are important. It was difficult to overcome my immediate dislike of some of the characters, including Caro, due to those grating tones.Perhaps it was a lack of nuance on the narrator’s part. She must have read the book and decided that Caro’s ‘sass’ and resentments must have been expressed in every syllable that came out of her mouth, in the worst way. She was right, though, that Caro did have a ton of resentment, some of it misplaced, I believe. That might be an arguing point, but it irked me how rude Caro was on and on to Emily, her cousin, who was trying to be as nice and helpful as she could be; I suppose some of that may have been worsened by the tone the narrator used for Caro’s voice (if some of it were said more reluctantly or matter-of-factly, I may not have reacted so much). Emily just took it, which was very high-minded of her, but made me even more annoyed for her. Not just that, but Caro was jeopardizing her own slim chances of having a better life by repeatedly trying to alienate Emily with her rude behavior (which it absolutely was in the audiobook, at least). I’m not sure how many Emilys would have kept taking that sort of continual rebuff. Not sure why she even kept trying—except that she was right that Caro and her mother were being treated dismally.Another issue I had with the story is that Caro often showed poor judgment in other ways as well. But then, she was young, and maybe it was entirely realistic. Often she made good choices. I suppose I’m a little more used to my protagonists being savvier. What bothered me, particularly, is that her poor choices never seemed to sink her—though really, I suppose that is closer to reality than one might think. How often do we get every element right, all the time?My last gripe is that Waldfogel presents Caro, who has ‘ivory’ skin, as being treated just like all the other slaves when her fancy clothes are taken away—by the public, that is. Seems to me that Waldfogel was a little out of touch with the differences this would have created for her in society, being a beautiful young quadroon as she was.I suspect I would have enjoyed the print version of this novel much more than the audiobook, as those obnoxious tones grated and colored my perceptions of the characters (and the author) unfairly, perhaps. Even if the author did mean for there to be subtle inflections that way, it doesn’t mean she meant for them to be ruint with exaggerated whininess in the tone of voice, which makes us far less sympathetic to the characters. A character can say something with a tone of mild-but-pleasant exasperation and not... well, you get my drift. Skip the audiobook unless it’s the only way you consume novels, but if you do listen to it, try to take those strident tones in stride. I gave 4 stars for the story itself, but I wrestled back and forth with a 3-star rating, solely because of the narration.

This is the first book in this series about the South a young woman the daughter of a white man and a slave and the way they are treated after his death and a flight to freedom

Love this book. There’s not a lot of novels about the free slaves in Charleston. I didn’t realize there was so many and they had their own society. Theirs was pretty much like the Whites of their times. I didn’t know they were able to ply their trade and some that weren’t free were able to work outside of the home just as if they were free!The author takes you on a spell binding journey of Caro and Emily . They were cousins one was White and one was Black. I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

It took me a while to get into this one, but once I did, I was hooked. I loved how the author showed how it would have been for slaves who were used to white masters who took care of them, but lost them to death and saw their whole lives change with their loss. Kitty and Cara were excellent examples. Cara or Caroline lost her father and then her mother. Her father's brother became their master and made their lives miserable. His daughter, Emily, made an excellent example f a cousin who tried to help the best she could, but was helpless herself at times.I was hoping for a happy ending between Cara and Danny, and I hated how he left her own her own in the end, but there was one half of a happy ending with Emily and Joshua. I was glad to see that one. Emily's father threatened to put her in a madhouse, so she comes to hate her life and runs like a slave though she's free.This is the first novel I've read by this author, but as I love historical fiction, I'll probably read others. BJ Robinson, Author of the Azalea Plantation Series and others

I really can relate to these women and the ways the oppressors tried to silence and bend them to their will. Residential School.

This was a good story about slavery in the USA. I liked reading about Kitty, Carolina and Emily I think that this book gets very close to what happened at that time. Can’t wait to see what happens next. already reading the second book in the series

I've always felt there should be more nonfiction books on slavery. My heart hurts for the people of slavery! No matter the color I believe slavery is so wrong! I enjoyed this fiction book. It was well written!