Angels Make Their Hope Here

July 1, 2014
In the particularly dangerous period before emancipation, a band of free blacks and mixed-race people had for generations carved for themselves a haven from racial animosity in the backwoods area of New Jersey they called Russell's Knob. Into this isolated and tucked-away territory, patriarch Duncan Smoots brought Dossie, a small young girl he'd rescued from slaveholders. Admired and envied, the people of Russell's Knob were fiercely independent of the town and others. Quiet by nature, Dossie makes a home for herself under the protection of Duncan, but she grows increasingly aware that she has upset the social structure of the Knob. When she blossoms into a beautiful young woman, she stirs emotions among the nephews and triggers a rift in the social fabric of the Knob. Set in the years leading up to the Civil War, in settings from the wilds of New Jersey to the streets of New York during the draft riots, Clarke's novel offers fascinating characters coping with heritage, identity, and complicated relationships.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)