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Orphaned while onboard ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is to live and work with the slaves of the kitchen house.
Under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her adopted family, though she is set apart from them by her white skin.
Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. Lavinia finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When she is forced to make a choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare, and lives are put at risk.
The Kitchen House is a tragic story of page-turning suspense, exploring the meaning of family, where love and loyalty prevail.
(Information provided by the publisher.)
Born Kathleen Doepker, I was privileged as a child to be raised in Annaheim, Saskatchewan, a hamlet on the plains of Canada. Although we lived in a small, tightly knit Roman Catholic community, I was fortunate to have parents who encouraged learning about other religions and cultures and books were the windows that expanded my world.
Years later, when my husband and I began restoration of an old plantation home in rural Virginia, I started to research the history of this house and the land that surrounded it. It was then I discovered an old map and there a notation that read ‘Negro Hill.’ To this day I am uncertain why those words captured me so, but I gradually set aside everything else to pursue the research and writing of the story that is now The Kitchen House.
There was one character from The Kitchen House who stayed with me, though. Jamie seemed to insist I tell his story next. The result is my latest work, Glory Over Everything.
Presently I am researching the true life story of Crow Mary, a Native woman who carried a Colt revolver on her studded belt and she wasn’t afraid to use it. I cannot wait to tell you more about her!
(Biography provided by the author)
