All We Were Promised: A Novel

Ashton Lattimore

Apr 2024 · Sold by Ballantine Books

About this ebook

A housemaid with a dangerous family secret conspires with a wealthy young abolitionist to help an enslaved girl escape, in volatile pre-Civil War Philadelphia.

The rebel . . . the socialite . . . and the fugitive. Together, they will risk everything for one another in this “beguiling story of friendship, deception, and women crossing boundaries in the name of freedom” (Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Lost Friends).

Philadelphia, 1837. After Charlotte escaped from the crumbling White Oaks plantation down South, she’d expected freedom to feel different from her former life as an enslaved housemaid. After all, Philadelphia is supposed to be the birthplace of American liberty. Instead, she’s locked away playing servant to her white-passing father, as they both attempt to hide their identities from slavecatchers who would destroy their new lives.

Longing to break away, Charlotte befriends Nell, a budding abolitionist from one of Philadelphia’s wealthiest Black families. Just as Charlotte starts to envision a future, a familiar face from her past reappears: Evie, her friend from White Oaks, has been brought to the city by the plantation mistress, and she’s desperate to escape. But as Charlotte and Nell conspire to rescue her, in a city engulfed by race riots and attacks on abolitionists, they soon discover that fighting for Evie’s freedom may cost them their own.

Ratings and reviews

A deep and informative look at the happenings in Philadelphia pre-emancipation and the imagined lives of three women. The story relates the tense atmosphere in a city where freed slaves dwell-some in poverty, others rising to create an elite class. The women are from three different classes-Nell is rich, Charlotte is a servant to her father, and Evie is a slave desiring to be free. The city explodes almost daily from tension as Nell and Charlotte strive to find a way to free Evie. Sometimes long and drawn out, the story slows many times as it progresses. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

19th century American historical fiction about women, slavery, and the abolitionist movement. It's loosely centered around Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia, which opened in 1838 and was torched by a mob 4 days later. Four women and their relationships with one another help us explore the line between right and wrong, between nice words and true commitment. It's an attorney's debut novel with heavy reliance on narration. Interesting but expect the first half to be slow. Lots to learn.

I was so blown away by this story first off, I couldn’t believe that this was the author’s first story because it didn’t seem like it at all. This seems like an author who has written many books. I would love to see more of her works, and I would gladly read them. She did such an excellent job on this story and she draws you into it keeping you there till the end. Secondly, this genre is my favorite the blending of facts and fiction. and I also love historical fiction. I would recommend this to

About the author

Ashton Lattimore is an award-winning journalist and a former lawyer. She is the editor-in-chief at Prism, a nonprofit news outlet by and for communities of color, and her nonfiction writing has also appeared in The Washington Post, Slate, CNN, and Essence. Lattimore is a graduate of Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and Columbia Journalism School. She grew up in New Jersey, and now lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband and their two sons. All We Were Promised is her first novel.