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The Daughter Of Union County

Fourteen years after the end of slavery, Lord Henry Hardin and his wife, Lady Bertha, enjoy an entitled life in Union County, Arkansas. Until he faces a devastating reality: Bertha is unable to bear children. If Henry doesn't produce an heir, the American branch of his family name will die out. So Henry, desperate to preserve his aristocratic family lineage, does the unthinkable. When Salome, Henry's colored mistress, gives birth to a white-skinned, blue-eyed daughter, Henry orders a reluctant Lady Bertha to claim the child as their own...allowing young Margaret to pass into the white world of privilege. As Margaret grows older, unaware of her true parentage, devastating circumstances threaten to shroud her in pain and shame...but then, ultimately, in revelation. Despite rumors about Margaret's true identity, Salome is determined to transform her daughter's bitter past into her secure future while Henry goes to extraordinary lengths to protect his legacy. Spanning decades and generations, marked by tragedy and redemption, this unforgettable saga illuminates a family's fight for their name, for survival, and for true freedom.

Audible Audio Edition

Listening Length: 15 hours and 19 minutes

Program Type: Audiobook

Version: Unabridged

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Audible.com Release Date: August 1, 2016

Whispersync for Voice: Ready

Language: English

ASIN: B01HQBSPG6

Best Sellers Rank: #59 in Books > Literature & Fiction > African American > Historical #126 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Historical > Cultural Heritage #1181 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Family Life

I seldom write negative reviews for books, but this was just awful. It isn't well-written. The black characters were stereotypes. The women were stereotypes. It was hard to build a true empathy with the heroine because she was so poorly written. I tried to force myself to finish it, but the storyline was a fail.

The only positive thing I can manage to say about this book is that it was a free Kindle First read. Free is good, but then there is certainly the matter of one's time. I value mine too highly, so I cheerfully abandoned this sophomoric dreck early this morning after some 120 pages of the beginning of more than 400 pages, and read the last three or four of the forty-five chapters. That was enough, surely, to decide whether this was a good, bad, or indifferent read. Bad won.Judging from the amount I managed to finish, I can say with a degree of certitude that every possible hackneyed literary trope, every imaginable cliche relating to plantations, Southerners--these folks were from Arkansas or lived there, which qualifies, just!--post-Civil War/Reconstruction era platitudes, former slaves, former female slaves as "mistresses," poor white trash, "passing for white," dark family secrets, and "birthing babies" was all here in the first few chapters. From what I skimmed through in the last chapters, most of this nonsense was still present in full spate.Who can possibly imagine a man allegedly descended from the "dukes of Norwalk"--were they originally from Connecticut, perhaps?--insisting that folks use his title: Lord Henry Hardin, and his lovely spouse, Lady Bertha? In Arkansas? Really? The mind boggles. But then, since one of Lord Henry's most cherished books was something called Brook's Peerage rather than the accurate Burke's Peerage, I'm not too surprised. Apparently "Lord Henry" was a native of Maryland, so he'd been an American long enough to know titles were not the done thing here. But no... And this misplaced English aristocrat, who was also a closet Catholic [though the few references to that religion were both inept and inaccurate] occasionally speaks like he's straight out of The Tudors when he isn't peppering his speech with such "American colloquialisms" as "Sugar lump" and "Darlin'", while Lady Bertha always sounds like an extra from Hee Haw. The dialogue of the Hardins, their friends. relatives, and servants is rank with truly cringe-worthy attempts at dialect and convoluted sentence structure. Not too many folks spoke like this except in Hollywood "B" movies.So the plot centers around the white-skinned, blue-eyed daughter of Henry Hardin and his "mistress," Salome [Henry actually referred to her as a "colored wench"] raised as the Hardin heir because poor Bertha cannot carry a child to term. And the story of keeping this secret drags on and on and on... Tell me how many times you've heard this tale before.It's my fault and no one else's that I wasted my time on this book; I'd tried to read Paris Noire by the same author a couple of years ago, and it was worse than this book if that's possible. And no, this book would not--and did not--magically improve if I'd just persevered until the grand finale.I just might recommend this book to a sworn enemy, but to no one else with an ounce of literary discernment.

Although it's being marketed as historical fiction, this book is actually the author's family mythology, full of secretly swapped babies, American nobility (?), "coloured" mistresses, family secrets, and...I'm making it sound far more exciting than it is. The characters have exactly one note: frenetic. They scream at each other for four-hundred pages in impenetrable (and inaccurate) dialect, and when they get tired of that, there's raping and wife beating to be done. Other reviewers have covered the factual errors and blatantly unnecessary violence. But worst of all, the book doesn't seem to have any reason to exist. A lot potential themes are brought up, various abuses of slavery or the immediate post-slavery period, but the author speeds past them with vast time skips to create a slide show of horrors instead. The cast has no development. The titular character spends most conversations saying, "What?" "Huh?" "I have to [repeats exactly what she was just told]?" I don't think she ever actually does anything on her own, just gets yelled along by other characters. As for the supporting cast, they show up every few decades to deliver the same threat or make the same offensive comment as last time, with no one ever growing or developing. In all four hundred pages, there is nothing to connect to, nothing to engage the reader, no questions to ask. There is nothing here but slavesploitation.Diagnosis: Read Pudd'nhead Wilson instead.

This book is SO awful. I don't often write reviews, but this books requires one. Historical fiction is my favorite genre. However, this book badly misses the mark. It does explore common events in a patriarchal and prejudiced environment that are, by nature, horrible and complex. There are multiple events explored, however, that are not vaguely important to the story line that are so vulgar, base, and violent that they are revolting. Such a focus on depravity distracts from what should be the main focus of the story. The author uses repetitious vulgarity to touch on topics such as impotence (in an ancillary character who isn't even important to the story line). The author repeatedly inserts stilted and ridiculous characters and events just to create scenes of depravity. It's disgusting and a waste of time.

I had high hopes for this book, but I am disappointed in it. I agree with the other one star reviews. A lot of violence towards women. I know it was a racist, sexist time, but I feel there is nothing redeeming in this book. Spoiler: I just finished the scene where Margaret is raped. Disturbing how little she fought back and her reactions. I will not be finishing this book. Yes, it's a free book and that's why it's a bestseller on Kindle. It's not bestseller quality.

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