The House Girl: A Novel

· Sold by Harper Collins
4.4
120 reviews
Ebook
416
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

“Assured and arresting...You cannot put it down.”” (Chicago Tribune)

The House Girl, the historical fiction debut by Tara Conklin, is an unforgettable story of love, history, and a search for justice, set in modern-day New York and 1852 Virginia.

Two remarkable women, separated by more than a century, whose lives unexpectedly intertwine . . .

2004: Lina Sparrow is an ambitious young lawyer working on a historic class-action lawsuit seeking reparations for the descendants of American slaves.

1852: Josephine is a seventeen-year-old house slave who tends to the mistress of a Virginia tobacco farm—an aspiring artist named Lu Anne Bell.

It is through her father, renowned artist Oscar Sparrow, that Lina discovers a controversy rocking the art world: art historians now suspect that the revered paintings of Lu Anne Bell, an antebellum artist known for her humanizing portraits of the slaves who worked her Virginia tobacco farm, were actually the work of her house slave, Josephine.

A descendant of Josephine's would be the perfect face for the lawsuit—if Lina can find one. But nothing is known about Josephine's fate following Lu Anne Bell's death in 1852. In piecing together Josephine's story, Lina embarks on a journey that will lead her to question her own life, including the full story of her mother's mysterious death twenty years before.

Alternating between antebellum Virginia and modern-day New York, this searing tale of art and history, love and secrets explores what it means to repair a wrong, and asks whether truth can be more important than justice. Featuring two remarkable, unforgettable heroines, Tara Conklin's The House Girl is riveting and powerful, literary fiction at its very best.

Ratings and reviews

4.4
120 reviews
Jane Katsune
February 25, 2016
An extremely tied together story. Sadness of the life of a teen slave against a setting of a modern young woman attorney researching artwork done either by mistress or slave. Personal story woven throughout....probable but not pertinent. Good read. Exceptional writer.
5 people found this review helpful
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Ashley Solsrud
March 9, 2017
Last 50 or so pages had lines missing from the text.... Like it has been cut off. Brilliant book though. Excellent craftsmanship, and authentic characters. Just wish the digitalization has been better.
6 people found this review helpful
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Chuck O'Neil
January 27, 2015
I thought much of the book was unrealistic. But as I got into it I had a hard time putting it down.
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About the author

Tara Conklin was born on St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands and raised in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. She is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Last Romantics and The House Girl.

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