288 pages | paperback |From theNew York Timesbestselling author ofHouse of Evea 2023 Reeses Book Club Pick!

Called wholly engrossing byNew York Timesbestselling author Kathleen Grissom, this fully immersive (Lisa Wingate, #1 bestselling author ofBefore We Were Yours) story follows an enslaved woman forced to barter love and freedom while living in the most infamous slave jail in Virginia.

Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mothers position as the estates medicine woman and cherished by the Masters sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world.

Shed been promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Pheby is forced to leave the only home she has ever known. She unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devils Half Acre, a jail in Richmond, Virginia, where the enslaved are broken, tortured, and sold every day. There, Pheby is exposed not just to her Jailers cruelty but also to his contradictions. To survive, Pheby will have to outwit him, and she soon faces the ultimate sacrifice.