Glory over everything: Beyond the Kitchen Houseby Kathleen Grissom
I committed the cardinal sin of reading a sequel without reading the first book. This appears to be the continuing story of Jamie Pyke, a quadroon who can pass for a white. He is now called James (? I think) Burton and he's a well-off white man, an artist and metalworker.
But it's also the story of Pan, the smart, ambitious boy whose mother dies so he's sent to work for Mr. Burton. And of Caroline, a naive young girl attending Mr. Burton's art class. And Sukey, a slave who runs a hospital. And...well, you get the idea. About the only person who doesn't have a story, much, is the butler Robert--but he runs throughout the narrative like Bunter does in the Lord Peter mysteries. Efficient; perceptive; indispensable. I liked him best of all.
I'm planning to seek out and read The Kitchen House now. Author Kathleen Grissom can really whip out a tale, and while her imagination seems to know no bounds, it's amazingly true to the time and place. I'm sure there must be an anachronism somewhere, in a 365-page book, but I didn't catch it.
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