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One Day's Tale
One Day's Tale

One Day's Tale

A Novel

12+

FICTION

378 Pages, 5.25 x 8

Formats: Trade Paper

Trade Paper, $12.99 (US $12.99) (CA $15.99)

Publication Date: January 2016

ISBN 9780986245107

Rights: US & CA

Austin Lamp Press (Jan 2016)

Price: $12.99
 
 

Overview

Betsy Randall and her family set out from England in 1713 to claim Good Hope, her late brother's plantation in Colonial Virginia. Betsy arrives alone in a land of Europeans, Africans, and Indians becoming a nation. Accustomed to a life ruled by men, she realizes that she now owns not just a plantation but the people who live and work there. In her new life, she encounters the kindness and treachery of colonials; the bravery and violence of frontiersmen, soldiers, bandits and Indians; the inhumanity of slavery; and the surprisingly close relationships between slave and master.  On her journey to independence, Betsy is forced to confront both the cruelty and intimacy of slavery and the unwritten rules of a male-dominated society.

Reviews

"A complicated, engaging and ultimately moving narrative . . . The writing is assured and affecting, and Barliant does fine work exploring this troubled era without becoming bogged down in its details."  —Kirkus Reviews

"Lois Barliant is a terrifically gifted writer who knows this world to bedrock, and One Day's Tale is a spectacular act of the moral imagination—by turns lush and terrifying, it's a celebration of the love that liberates and an indictment of the institutional racism and misogyny that continue to haunt our present moment."  —Karen Russell, author, Swamplandia!

"Betsy encounters pirates as ruthless as ISIS and the brute ugliness of slavery, but she maintains her courage and her commitments to other human beings. A moving, believable and beautifully researched story."  —Scott Turow, author, Identical

"An exciting adventure novel about an English woman surviving violence on the high seas, and arriving in the American colonies in very different circumstances than she expected. The atmosphere is charged, the details sure. This is a captivating book."  —Elizabeth McKenzie, author, Stop that Girl

 "One Day's Tale isn't historical fiction. It's a literary novel about oppression."  —Wayne Johnson, author, Live to Ride

Author Biography

Lois Barliant is a former creative writing teacher and editor. Her work has been published in The Chicago Quarterly, The Clothes Line Review, The Hartland Review, and Out of Line. She lives in Chicago.