River Sing Me Home set in the Caribbean

Submitted: 6th January 2023

Caribbean tale by Eleanor Shearer

All in all, this is the story of a mother’s gripping journey across the Caribbean to find her stolen children in the aftermath of slavery.

What’s even more remakable is that the author was inspired by a real life situation and an exhibition put on by the Windrush foundation. This is a special tale…

BookTrail the locations in River Sing Me Home

Boarding Pass Information : River Sing Me Home

Destination : Caribbean

Author guide: Eleanor Shearer

Genre: Historical fiction

Food and drink to accompany: beef patties and rum punch

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BookTrail the locations in River Sing Me Home

A novel to transport you to the Caribbean and the slave trade

Wow. That’s my one word review right there. No other words needed. However, that’s not much of a review so I will expand on that although I fear I may not be able to find the right words.

Very cleverly, the author has taken a remarkable event from the past, inspiration from an exhibition she saw, with the whispers of family history flowing past her ears, and written a remarkably personal and insightful look into one woman’s fight for her children.

I knew this book was going to be special from the first page. Rachel is running. It’s dark and cold and she runs in fear. Rachel is from a plantation and is running to find her children who have been taken off her and sold to other plantations. I was immediately invested. Where were they? Would she find them? Would Rachel survive?

The author has such a clever way of making these characters so real. I wanted to wipe Rachel’s tears and help her along – and that was just by page 5! A wonderful character named Mama B enters the scene then but could I relax? No! This journey was going to be a lot more difficult and stressful than I could ever have imagined.

There is such warmth and tenderness in this novel. Amazing to think that the author has taken such a heartbreaking situation, yet written about it with such compassion and tenderness that it makes you feel, breathe and live the same emotions as the characters. My heart was in my mouth! I felt Rachel’s fear. To think that there were so many Rachel’s in this very situation in real life. I was transfixed yet terrified of what she would have to endure, who she would meet, the danger she was in.

BookTrail the locations in River Sing Me Home

This is a journey like no other. Honestly, I normally love locations in books but each change meant that she was now on the trail of another child and it made me nervous. Would she get there and what would she find there? My normally low blood pressure raised significantly during this book.

I am so pleased the author saw that Windrush exhibition. I am impressed that the author has taken such care and breathed such life into Rachel and her characters. Utlimately, I am grateful that this has opened up a world I had not been in before. And it’s a debut! Wow.

Just wow. I’m broken and empty of tears and I can’t recommend it highly enough.