The House Girl

Wow, what a great book! The story is great, the writing is great, the narration is great - just about everything is great.

The House Girl has two narrators - Josephine, a slave during the 1800s and Lina Sparrow, a lawyer today. I love when books weave two completely different people's lives together in a unique way and Conklin has beautifully done just that. Like all the good authors who do this narration style well, the reader cares about both stories. One story is not more important or compelling than the other.

The one disappointing thing about the novel was the lack of authentic slave accents. I am continually struck by how many authors don't use true accents. I wrote a little bit about this in my review for The Kitchen House, which did a better job than The House Girl. I know accents make books a little more difficult to read, but the payoff is well worth it. I found the novel less believable without the accents. The voices narrating weren't as distinct and as such, Josephine was not as developed as a character as she could have been.

I love the plot of this book. Lina Sparrow, a junior lawyer, is researching to find a face to represent a slavery reparation case. She works all the time and lives with her widowed artist father. Josephine is a house slave who due to her mistress (also an artist) getting ill, decides to run. Lina is looking for a descendant of Josephine while Josephine is just looking to live.

The House Girl is a great book and I highly recommend it!