New York Times bestselling author of Girl
With a Pearl Earring Tracy Chevalier makes her first
fictional foray into the American past in The Last
Runaway, bringing to life the Underground Railroad and
illuminating the principles, passions and realities that
fueled this extraordinary freedom movement.
In
New York Times bestselling author Tracy Chevalier’s
newest historical saga, she introduces Honor Bright, a
modest English Quaker who moves to Ohio in 1850, only to
find herself alienated and alone in a strange land. Sick
from the moment she leaves England, and fleeing personal
disappointment, she is forced by family tragedy to rely on
strangers in a harsh, unfamiliar landscape.
Nineteenth-century America is practical, precarious, and
unsentimental, and scarred by the continuing injustice of
slavery. In her new home Honor discovers that principles
count for little, even within a religious community meant to
be committed to human equality.
However, drawn into
the clandestine activities of the Underground Railroad, a
network helping runaway slaves escape to freedom, Honor
befriends two surprising women who embody the remarkable
power of defiance. Eventually she must decide if she too can
act on what she believes in, whatever the personal
costs.
A powerful journey brimming with color and
drama, The Last Runaway is Tracy Chevalier’s vivid
engagement with an iconic part of American history.