The Wedding Gift is a very emotional book and was a hard read. When you're reading a book about slavery, the owning of another person you say to yourself how is this even possible? You are with your parents until you are grown, if you are fortunate enough. But to be kidnapped or just taken possession of and belong to another person and have no say in your life and what you do? Not much could be more wrong than this. When you think of slaves and slavery do you think of Civil War times? I know I do but yet statistics say there are more slaves worldwide now than any other time in history, over 40.3 million people and this was in 2018.
While I didn't find much unexpected in this book about slavery as I've read a lot on the subject, I thought it was a worthwhile read to once again bring attention to it.
This book is a work of fiction though it could mirror the life many slaves had.
From about 6 years old Sarah knew she was a slave, living in the slave quarters with her Mama and older sister. She worked in the kitchen with her mother. Sarah was the half-sister of the plantation owner's daughter, Carissa. Carissa had the right to tell her she had to play with her, and the girls grew together as sisters. Carissa was given schooling lessons and Sarah would sit in on them and learned to read and write. Of course, learning to read and write was strictly forbidden for slaves back then and punishable by beating to death.
When it's time for Carissa to marry Sarah is to be given to Carissa's soon to be cruel husband as a wedding gift.
Sarah in desperation uses these forbidden skills, reading and writing as a way to escape plantation life. With slave catchers and their dogs hot on the trail of her scent, will she make it to freedom where even free people can be taken back into custody in the free states?
The book has a lot in it you would expect of life on a planation filled with slaves. At the end there was a surprising twist though. A quick read, I had trouble putting this one down.

Pub Date 02 Sep 2021
I was given a complimentary copy of this book.
All opinions expressed are my own.

This book was just so awful. The ending was laughable. It is written so badly. The dialogue in this book seemed very forced. Not for me

This book had great promise with a great plot, but i just found it really hard to focus. I loved the history and most of the character development, but I felt like the shaping of the book was a little off kilter. There was a lot of information to process, and as much as it was a page turner, with a couple of twists I loved, I found it there was too much disconnect. I couldn’t get stuck in to this book as a unusually would.

This was a brilliant read and is being featured on my blog for my quick star reviews feature, which I have created on my blog so I can catch up with all the books I have read and therefore review.
See www.chellsandbooks.wordpress.com.

Spellbinding!
Sarah Campbell has always known she was different.

A slave at Allen Estates, Alabama, and the illegitimate daughter of the plantation owner Mr Allen, she's used to the other children's jibes, her mother's night-time trips to Mr Allen and, to her delight, her furtive literacy lessons with her white half-sister Clarissa.

Slowly, using her forbidden knowledge of reading and writing, Sarah plots an escape to the north and freedom. But Sarah's life is turned upside-down when she learns she will be given to Clarissa's cruel, soon-to-be-husband as a wedding gift, becoming his property.

Sarah knows this could be her last chance to escape for good. But will her secret skills and unrelenting willpower be enough to set her free?

The Wedding Gift is an emotional, absorbing story which will stay with me.

The story is told from two points of view of both slave and Slave owner which I thought was very interesting. It was fascinating to learn more about life on the plantation from the two sides and to see how different their lives were. My heart broke for the poor slaves and the hardships they had to endure. It was incredibly emotional to see how cruelly they were treated by the plantation overseers and owners. I found myself getting very angry on their behalf and wished I could somehow help them.

The characters were great creations who I enjoyed following throughout the book. I felt completely drawn into their lives and soon found that I really cared for them. The lovely camaraderie that existed between the slaves was wonderful to read about, especially how they all looked after each others children when they were targeted by the overseers or covered for each other when they were working. It really made me warm to them and I found I had to keep reading to find out what happens to them.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and will be recommending it to others. The story was well paced and the many different parts of the story kept me reading, often far too late into the night. The story is written as a slave from the time might have spoken which took a little bit of getting used to but I think actually helped set the scene for me. The twist near the end was very unexpected but hugely satisfying and I found myself quite sad to end.

Huge thanks to Georgia from Arrow publishing for inviting me onto the blog tour and for my copy of this book.

This book has been so cleverly written. It tells a story that is heart breaking at times, but also full of love, and all through the different women who are the main protagonists of the story. To see the events from the perspective of Emmeline, the slave forced to lie with her master, and that of the master’s wife, and that of their daughters- one enslaved, one not. It’s just amazing- it gives a beautiful multi faceted dimension to the novel. The story itself is clearly well researched and the author showed a great knowledge and understanding of life on plantations in that time. So sad, but nonetheless an enthralling read.

This is a quick review due to lack of time, but I will be writing more for my blog when I’m able, because this was a powerful book I really enjoyed. I have a good background education in slavery since studying post-colonial literature and this book was another great addition to the growing history being documented. I enjoyed having two perspectives - from the enslaved and from the slave owner. Sarah and Clarissa are half-sisters, but they couldn’t be further apart in terms of position. Sarah is born into slavery as the daughter of plantation owner Mr Allen and she even has his surname. Even though we can see how precarious her position is, she thinks her life is normal. She knows that the other children call her names - she’s not quite one of them - and she’s used to her Mamma’s late night visits to Mr Allen. The key to her understanding her position and documenting it, is the ability to read and write. This is something other slaves don’t have, because she has been secretly joining her half-sister Clarissa’s lessons. She already knows she wants to be free and dreams of escaping North where she can live like anyone else. I really felt for this girl and was immediately willing her on to succeed. However, her daddy has other plans. When Clarissa is to marry, Sarah will transfer into the ownership of her husband. Sarah knows he is cruel and I could see her ending up in exactly the same position as her mother, the secret mistress of the slave owner, her own brother - in - law. As a woman, Clarissa has very little power too and she would be unable to prevent it happening. I didn’t gel with her narrative in the same way, possibly my own bias, but Sarah’s narrative just felt stronger. She knows that this her last chance for escape and she has to seize it. This half of the book was very compelling. The author set the scene well and gave enough background to into the time period and slavery that the characters felt embedded in reality. Yet it never felt like I was reading a text book either. The second half wasn’t quite as compelling as the first, but did deliver a twist at the end that had impact. I really enjoyed that the end didn’t tie up everyone’s story neatly in a bow. There were things I was left questioning and wondering about. Overall a really great piece of historical fiction and a promising debut.

I read this when it was first published several years ago. It didn't stand the test of time particularly well for me, which is surprising but I think that's because other, better novels with the same themes have been published since. That said, know that it's dialogue heavy (and some of that dialogue is unrealistic) and that the two women will intrigue you. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC.

I must admit, I don't normally read books about slavery that aren't from the nonfiction section as I find they go into so much detail that it makes my blood boil with the injustice, and plays on my mind too much that I came sleep; and this was the case with this book. The events that happened are things that did happen often, and were told in detail, and to be honest, I felt a bit too much detail that it made the book too heavy and I was unprepared for how graphic it would be. I couldn't say I connected very well to the characters, not because I didn't like them or hated the story, but the writing style just made me feel very disconnected from them, almost as if they were a 2d character in a 3d world. I wouldn't say it's a bad book, but I wouldn't recommend either as it didn't blow me away

I've received this book in exchange for an honest review.
First of all I'm not a fan of slavery books,but decided to give it a try,as it's been a while since I've read a historical novel.
Considering that this is the debut for the author and the author has a background as a lawyer it's surprisingly good.
Yes it has some flaws,but I'll give it 5 stars.
I found very interesting the way the book was narrated,from two main  points of views: first,Sarah's the slave who'll escape and Theodora's the master's wife-the slaver. This 2 women had such cruel experiences that you get to feel sympathy for both.
I'll admit that some descriptions of the scenes where the slaves had been raped,or the abortion were so hard to read,that i needed a break,but i can understand that the goal for the author was to give an authentic insight of these horrible days,and she achieved her goal.
I felt that the end was a bit rushed i believe she could gave a bit more of space for sarah,for her story end. But i did enjoyed the twist, i admit i wasn't expecting the details revealed by sarah at the end.
Overall a good read,and yes i recommend it.

I took this one home from the library and read it in two evenings.  It received quite a bit of a pre-release publicity but then seemed to sink without a trace.  It is clearly intended as a kind of mix of The Help and Gone With The Wind but despite grand intentions, the story flounders in the rather flat writing.  This is doubly unfortunate because the actual points of the plot were compelling and I felt that with a more able writer, this had the potential to be a fascinating read.  I was also slightly nonplussed about the title - much was made in the publicity of the fact that one of the main characters was given as a wedding gift to another but then within the plot itself, this had very little significance.  It was simply that the girl who was the other girl's slave continued to be so after the wedding.  It was a compelling read which kept me hooked until the end but more than anything it felt like a lost opportunity - a good idea poorly realised.

The story is narrated in alternating sections by Sarah, a young slave on the Allen plantation, and then also Theodora, the master's wife.  Sarah's mother Emmeline has been forced to be Mr Allen's mistress from long before his marriage to Theodora. Sarah was born only three months before Clarissa, Mr and Mrs Allen's legitimate daughter.  As Clarissa's unacknowledged half-sister, Sarah grows up playing with her, hearing stories with her - and learning to be her maid.  Mrs Allen is a highly educated young woman who once dreamed of living independently before being coaxed into marriage with Cornelius Allen; being a wife is the only career path open to her.  She tries to do her best with the slaves, to plead their case where appropriate to the master and to find contentment wherever possible through her daughter Clarissa.

This is the author's debut novel, her career otherwise has been as a lawyer and this shows.  The story is itself based on a divorce case where a man sued his wife for teaching his slaves to read, and the marriage was then dissolved.  Mrs Allen dares to teach Sarah alongside Clarissa, locking the door and swearing both little girls to secrecy. From early childhood, Sarah longs for freedom, although whenever she speaks the words, her mother berates her for careless talk. More worryingly, Bodden allows herself to get needlessly bogged down in points of legalistic detail - something which no doubt stood her in good stead as a lawyer but which is decidedly less attractive as a novelist. The codicils and addendums to wills are dissected, evidence required for divorce is analysed and what should feel like a story of high emotion instead falls very flat.

That is not to say that there are not moments of horror. When Sarah's other sister, Belle, is sold as punishment for their mother's obstinacy, the account of what befell her was truly upsetting. Still later, the graphic description of a slave woman going through an amateur abortion made me feel quite dizzy. We can sense that the author cares passionately about this time period and is desperately keen to speak for them, to tell their story but she lacks the creative gift to do so with conviction. One character bounces back after the death of her daughter after only a few days. The slave characters, and Emmeline in particular, seem listless and lacking in any energy to make them sympathetic. And all the time, Bodden tells, tells, tells and is never able to show anything about her characters. The 'twist' on the final page feels like a discordant note, a last-minute addition which made me shrug rather than want to turn back over the pages to check what I had missed.

The Wedding Gift is based on a situation appalling beyond words - Emmeline was happily married to her daughter Belle's father when Mr Allen sold him so that he could have Emmeline to himself. Then he took a wife, Theodora, and forced Emmeline to have his baby. Belle was sold to be raped. Sarah was ordered to sleep with her half-sister's husband. But Bodden is not able to make us feel this - she tells us repeatedly that her characters are sad, or are angry, but she narrates her story through flat and unconvincing dialogue and it feels sluggish and forced. I thought of Toni Morrison's Beloved - in that novel, the mother had killed her child to stop her being taken back to slavery. At one point other slaves discussed some of the more diabolical acts they had been forced to by their masters. I still remember that passage with exact clarity - it was short, it took up very little of the novel but in just a few paragraphs, Morrison achieved what Bodden did not.  The resolution here feels unconvincing and the characters feel like cardboard - these are stories that need to be told, but not like this.