Review: An Unusual Story of the Underground Railroad
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 11, 2013
Set in 1856 in the decade prior to the Civil War, this is the story of abolitionist Heather Fitzpatrick from New York and Army Lieutenant David Whitman who was raised on his family's plantation in Georgia. David has come north on an errand for his father--to find a runaway slave--and he meets and falls for Heather, who is having her first Season with her twin sister Jasmine. Unknown to David is that the Fitzpatrick family is hiding the slave he is seeking.When Heather and David quickly become engaged, knowing little of each other, she travels with him to his family plantation to meet his parents. Naively (I thought), she plans to teach the slaves to read and write. And David, who seemed more northern in his attitudes than southern, goes along with it. Once she arrives in Georgia, Heather discovers David's mother is plotting to replace Heather with a southern belle.While the story was clever and the writing generally good (and reflecting the author's research into the history of the period), the descriptions of places and people could have been more vivid so I was not left with vague impressions of them. Then, too, some of the characters' actions seemed inappropriate for the period. While they acknowledged repeatedly that Heather, who was supposedly a very proper young lady, was constantly doing improper things, it still seemed odd. She would not need her sister to tell her that to allow a man to dominate her time on the dance floor and off, and to be with him alone for hours, was a sure sign they were engaged--or worse. What was odd was that her father had very little to say about her behavior. And for Heather to think it was all right for her to teach the slaves on David's plantation to read seemed presumptuous for a white girl from the north. It also seemed unusual for David's father to quickly give his consent to the marriage when he was a southern slave owner and to express no interest in his only surviving son's taking over the plantation that had been in the family for a hundred years. Not very southern in character and not very 19th century.It all seemed a bit modern. But when Heather ends up in jail for the night, and suddenly drops her crusade and her fiancé and heads back north to entertain new suitors, I was mystified. Just couldn't see the valiant young woman who thought to prepare slaves for a new world doing that. But then that's just me.This is second in the Cotillion Ball Series:The Reluctant Debutante (Ginger Fitzpatrick)The Abolitionist's Secret (Heather Fitzpatrick)Banking on Temperance (Basil Fitzpatrick)