The chapters and voice alternate between a present-day young female lawyer named Lina, and Josephine, a slave working as 'house girl' for the lady of the house. The House Girl starts off with an intriguing premise and structure. Enter present day and Lina, up and coming attorney in a large firm, slated for partner, who has a reparations suit dropped in her lap-her research brings her into Josephine's extraordinary short life and begins to reveal the truth-could those paintings truly be the work of Josephine? Beautifully woven story-although the core is Josephine, it is the story of Lina's own battles-guess you'll just have to read it for yourself! The buyers of the plantation showcase those works as those of Missus Lu. Tragedy occurs, both die in separate incidents and it is assumed that the paintings found were the accomplishments of the Missus. The missus has given Josephine exposure to her own studio where Josephine can blossom into quite an accomplished artist. We meet Josephine, a house girl to Missus Lu on what had once been a large and prosperous tobacco plantation.

The story flows painlessly from present day to late 1840's. A brave girl who could tell us a story of plantation life as she saw it through drawing and painting. This was a fabulous story, a story of a slave out of the tobacco fields in Virginia who wanted nothing more than to be free-at any cost. Read moreĬhallenges read for: Goodreads, EBook, Historical Fictionīook Cover: Simple, pretty, very much the way Josephine would be. Imaginative and engaging, lyrical and poignant, Memory of Water is an indelible novel that portrays a future that is all too possible. And as water becomes even scarcer, Noria must choose between safety and striking out, between knowledge and kinship.

Tea masters alone know the location of hidden water sources, including the natural spring that Noria’s father tends, which once provided water for her whole village.īut secrets do not stay hidden forever, and after her father’s death the army starts watching their town-and Noria. In this far north place, seventeen-year-old Noria Kaitio is learning to become a tea master like her father, a position that holds great responsibility and great secrets.

Wars are waged over water, and China rules Europe, including the Scandinavian Union, which is occupied by the power state of New Qian. Global warming has changed the world’s geography and its politics. An amazing, award-winning speculative fiction debut novel by a major new talent, in the vein of Ursula K.

Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta