This is the story of a mother and her love for her children. The book is very well written and deals with the hard hitting topic of slavery.
I felt satisfied by the ending but I did expect more.

Absolutely fantastic book so very well written set in such an interesting and sad era.Written from the heart.Hard to believe slavery was so brutal on women and there children and not in such a distant past.I look forward to this authors next book.

The master of the Providence plantation in Barbados gathers his slaves and announces the king has decreed an end to slavery. The cries of joy fall silent when he announces that they are no longer his slaves; they are now his apprentices. No one can leave. They must work for him for another six years. So Rachel runs and begins a desperate search to find her children. Are any of them still alive?

This heartbreaking debut novel deals with an important part of Caribbean history - and one that is incredibly close to the authors heart, you can sense that in every single sentence.

The prose is beautiful - but the story line itself is a little too linear for me, the characters never seen to get the space to fully develop.

Would 100% recommend though if you're into historical fiction :)

This is a tough book to review. I am facing this challenge more often than not because I am trying to widen my reading scope. I pick books that have some value to offer and teach me something new other than the actual writing and plot. Conditioned as I am with regard to a certain style of writing and to the existence of the plot, I do not always get along with borderline non-fiction. This might be one of those instances.
The narrative voice is extremely straightforward to better reflect that of the lead protagonist. The language and structure of sentences also are based on the same principle.
The book begins with the announcement of the emancipation proclamation. Although the law changes, at the ground level, not much changes. Especially on the plantations since there is still a demand, and to pay the workers would mean serious losses for the landlords. None of this is discussed directly. What is shown to us is the hope of one woman who has lost all her children, one at a time to the slave trade. She herself manages to escape but wants to use this newfound and precious freedom to track down the people whose names she has been chanting to herself whenever possible.
It is a harsh world, even more so for the bewildered newbie who has never been out and about by herself. Thankfully, she has allies who assist her in her hunt and by the time the book ends, we have some form of closure on her life and that of her children.
It is a little abrupt at times, as the story has to catch up to the next child and the next trip.
I am not as fond of the form of narration, and if one can get past that, one will really get something out of this book.
It is not a story for the faint of heart. There is enough information here that, even without going into the details and with just mere hints about the situations, things feel so dire.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking to read about historical fiction of the 'plantation colonies' of the past.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer had me captured right at the first page, and kept me the whole way through until the final word. The novel is inspired by true stories of women who searched for their stolen children during the abolition of slavery in 1834. River Sing Me Home is a gruelling, but at the same time, heartbreakingly beautiful story of a mother who wants her babies back, or at least wants to know what has become of them following the Emancipation Act of 1834.
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We follow Rachel at the point of decision to run way from the Providence plantation in Barbados, where she is captive. The Master gathers all his slaves and mercilessly decrees that they will all continue to work for him (legally allowable) as apprentices for the next six years, freedom cloaked in another form of slavery. It is unbearable for Rachel and so she leaves in the night into the trees and the darkness, leading her towards a path that will either bring her more grief or help her find her babies. It feels almost unachievable, but a mother’s will for her children is a strong one, especially Rachel’s.
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I personally found it a difficult, heart wrenching, reading experience. Shearer’s imagery is powerful and does not protect its reader against the sheer horror of what these women had to live through. I still have very vivid visions of Shearer’s descriptions of Rachel’s seizures in the belly of the ship on the way to Trinidad, and the flashbacks that we are exposed to. And it is this that makes this novel a true masterpiece, and I was shocked to find out that this is Shearer’s debut novel.
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A must-un-put-downable read that I believe should be on education curriculums here on out. I am truly thankful for its existence, and highlighted to me I have much to learn. ⁣
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Five stars from me all around. ⁣
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Thank you to @netgalley for a copy to review.

I love supporting debut authors and I love exploring different countries through books, so when River Sing Me Home popped up on my feed I knew I had to try it.

River Sing Me Home is set in the Caribbean in the 1800's, just after Britain put the Emancipation Act into law. Unfortunately, there were loopholes that the plantation owners took advantage of, and so it wasn't necessarily the breakthrough that we thought.

This book doesn't really focus on what happened due to this Act going into effect, though, as the main character immediately runs away when she realises what it could mean. Rachel is determined to find her missing children, and she will travel around the Caribbean in order to do so.

I really liked the concept of this book and the history that was written into it. It is clear that Shearer has done a tonne of research, and I enjoyed reading her author's note which talks a bit more about what went into this.

Unfortunately, where I think this book fell short was the pacing. Every time Rachel arrived in a new place, she found out what happened to one of her children. Really easily, and quickly, before she was on to the next one. We didn't really get a chance to get into Rachel's head and see what she was feeling each time.

I feel like River Sing Me Home was lacking a bit of emotional connection to the main character and her thoughts and feelings. It was still an emotional book, but I feel like the author was trying to do too much with this book with not enough practice or pages. I think it could have been bulked out with an extra 50 or 100 pages to really dig in to what the author was trying to do.

Overall though River Sing Me Home is a solid and heartbreaking debut. I really enjoyed reading it, and it was a good look into this particular point in history. I'm really looking forward to reading this author's next book, and I hope she tackles more historical fiction as you can tell this is a subject that she really cares about!

Beautiful historical fiction. Touches on themes of community, motherhood, grief, trauma and ultimately what it means to be truly free. This blew me away. Such an impressive debut.

River Sing Me Home is an incredibly moving exploration of motherhood, history and generational trauma. I would highly recommend.

I absolutely adored this novel, a deceptively easy read given the difficult subject matter. I wasn't aware of the history of former slaves trying to trace their children after emancipation and I both learned a lot on a factual level and deepened my emotional understanding of the plight of the slaves in the Caribbean (which I think is somewhat overlooked in the UK in favour of US slavery, presumably because a lot more reckoning is needed when the slave masters are the British). A beautiful book I will not forget, Rachel has been in my thoughts all day since I finished and I know I will continue to think of all the real women she represents. Highly recommended anf thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This is a story which broke my heart but also proved inspirational. Based on true events, it’s an unusual take on slavery in that it follows Rachel in her search for her children. Slavery is now illegal and it’s Rachel’s quest to find the. Children that were forcibly taken from her. There’s such a sense of place on virtually every page as she moves around the Caribbean to follow up leads. She’s driven by love and, most of all, hope. I can’t begin to imagine the heartbreak and difficulties she encountered and the writing is flawless. It’s eloquent without being flowery and it’s written with both passion and compassion.

It’s a truly powerful epic. It’s almost a journey without end and Eleanor Shearer has dealt with a sensitive and emotive subject with honesty. Stories such as this must always be told. All human life is here along with the odious legacy of colonialism. Certainly my best read of the year so far and one that will haunt me for some time.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

🇧🇧🇬🇾🇹🇹 River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer 🇹🇹🇬🇾🇧🇧

Hugest Thank you to the lovely and talented @eleanorbshearer for gifting a copy of her beautifully crafted book to me. I loved every moment.

Thanks also to @annecater14 at @randomthingstours for my spot on the tour as well as @headlinebooks

As some of you may know, my fathers side of the family originate from Barbados 🇧🇧 and still have family there today. The second thing that drew me to this book, after the title/cover, was the connection to the Caribbean and the story of what happened AFTER the Emancipation Proclamation. Which some people do not realise did not automatically make slaves free and able to go about their lives as they wished. They still had to fight for that freedom.

This is the story of Rachel, who traveled far to learn the fates of the children who were stolen from her whilst in slavery and her discovery about how far a little hope can carry you.

The relationships forged on Rachel’s journey are heartfelt and show how a mothers love knows no bounds. She would travel to the ends of the earth for find her babies.

The writing whilst emotive and a visual dream was also well paced and captivating.

My favourite part from Eleanor’s authors note is this:

“People travel to the Caribbean because it seems like paradise - a place outside time, where they can cast off the relentless rhythms of their own life and relax on the beach with a cocktail in hand. But to me, the Caribbean is beautiful because of its history, not in spite of it. A place where the past is always close to the surface, and echoes of history are everywhere.”

This is a beautiful story, steeped in history and brings to life the beauty of the Caribbean nations. It should be on a classroom read for high schools, our children need to know and understand that the slaves fought hard for their freedom and not that it was willingly given by all.

What an astounding debut! I cannot wait to read what Eleanor writes next!

#RiverSingMeHome #EndSlavery #WmancipationProclamation #Barbados #Bajan #BritishGuiana #Trinidad #IAmABajan #Debut2023 #DebutAuthor #ReadAndReview #BeautifulBook #PrettyBooks #Bookish #Bookstagram

A beautiful and powerful novel which broke my heart but was also a hopeful story of a mothers love for her children
This historical tale tells of Rachel who has been a slave in Barbados for many years but runs away when her children are taken away from her. We follow her desperate journey of anguish, loss and despair as she does everything she can to be reunited with them.
The author writes so beautifully and emotionally while really drawing you in to the the story and giving life to all the characters. The main character is particularly well written and had me rooting for her while simultaneously crying with her many times
Definitely not a book or a story I will forget in a hurry, I savoured every moment of this and felt all the emotions throughout plus also learned a lot from this book
Hopeful but heartbreaking, this might be one of my favourite books of the year and I’d love to read more from this author

The heart and gut-wrenching River Sing Me Home is an astonishing debut which follows Rachel, an emancipated former slave on her journey across Barbados, then over to Trinidad, to find her stolen children. Rachel is a character I won’t be forgetting anytime soon and River Sing Me Home is a book that will stay with me for a long time and one that I will return to and reread in the future.
Thanks to NetGalley and Headline for the opportunity to read and review an advanced copy of this stunning novel.

Before jumping into the review I just want to say one thing: if someone is not touched by this book, they should go immediately to the emergency room and get checked to see whether they have a heart. Anyone who can be unmoved by Rachel’s story may not actually be alive, or at least not in touch with their humanity.

Rachel is a slave on a sugar cane plantation in Barbados. Like any slave, her life has been full of struggle, of suffering, of loss. She has given birth to several children. Some were stillborn. Others died of illnesses while they were young, a common tragedy in those days for all families but particularly those kept in the squalor of the slave shacks. Several of Rachel’s children, though, did survive long enough to be taken from her by the white plantation owners. Two of her sons were sent to work on plantations in Demerara, part of Guyana. Three of her daughters were also taken and lost in the city of Providence.

“Freedom” comes to the British colonies while Rachel is still on the plantation where she has worked her entire life, mandated by the British parliament. For those who were once slaves, though, the word did not mean much. To pay off their “debts” to their masters–the costs of their purchase, feeding and housing them for years–slaves became “apprentices” for years more, still unable to leave, still with no rights, still with no freedom of movement. Rachel, though, determines that she has had enough. She runs.

Her journey begins by running away from the plantation, from slavery, from servitude, from the hopelessness and terror that filled her life. Fortunately, though, she encounters people who refocus her life. Instead of fleeing her past, she begins searching for her missing children. Her journey is marked by difficulty, by sorrow, by new friends and new enemies.

I want to be careful not to give away spoilers. This is such a compelling story, and Rachel is an amazing protagonist. She encounters many other amazing people in her journey. Leaders of free villages of black people, runaways who successfully remained hidden in the jungles of the Caribbean. Merchants making their living in the shadow of the white economy, turning the scraps they can affordinto beauty and magic and prosperity. Women who may earn their living in ways society frowns upon, but who choose their profession and choose whom they sell themselves to. They are no longer slaves, forced to bend to a master's will. They are businesswomen, earning their way.

One of my favorite characters is named “Nobody.” Nobody is a sailor Rachel meets on her first journey away from Barbados. His story is told in the book, but what struck me so powerfully was how he embraced and redeemed his name. In a society that cared so little for him that they named him Nobody, he insisted that he was somebody. He was a man, he was free, he earned his way in the world. He could have been angry, bitter, raging at the unfairness embodied in his very name. Instead, he made sure that everybody who met him knew that there was Nobody like him.

Micah. Thomas Augustus. Mary Grace. Cherry Jane. Mercy. The children Rachel mourns for are scattered, possibly dead, probably impossible to find. But a mother’s love will not be denied, and in seeking her children, Rachel also finds herself.

Emancipation does not mean freedom in this moving story of a mother’s search. Rachel is there when emancipation is declared in Barbados in 1834, but it’s a false freedom where slaves are expected to work as “apprentices” without pay for a number of years. There is nothing tying Rachel to this plantation and out in the world are the children that were taken from her over many years, so she decides to run. The story follows her attempts to find all her living children, and because this is a fictional account, the children have all ended up in different situations. Some have revolted against slavery, some live free in forests, some have found work, some have found partners. We come across other characters on the way which fill out the story of slavery and the struggle between the races. But I found the story is about Rachel more than her children, her love and courage, and sheer stubbornness. She is ordinary and extraordinary at the same time, and even though there is tragedy there is also triumph.

I had a copy of this book early through Netgalley

Absolutely loved it, from the very first page you are drawn into a engrossing tale. The characters are well defined and the story just moves really well. A brilliant read.

Phew. Just finished this. It was so beautifully crafted, so much poetry, lyricism, and raw storytelling. I learnt so much and that's why I looooove historical fiction. I knew little about the history of the Caribbean as my education was euro-centric when I was younger. I now want to feed myself with more stories like this one, to fill in the gaps. I loved the links between transmission and the earth, the connection to ancestral roots. Rachel is a symbol of inspiration and strength. Aaaaa I could go on and on! Love that the end has a reading group section with questions to reflect on. It gives me ideas for the next book club pick perhaps... It would initiate important discussions! Thank you Netgalley

A gripping, devastating debut novel that I couldn't read fast enough. This is the story of Rachael, a mother who journeys across the Caribbean in the hopes of finding the children that were stolen from her when she was a slave on a plantation in Barbados.

This is an eye opening story of what emancipation really meant to former slaves. The author clearly put a lot of effort in to research, in terms of the history of the abolition of slavery in British colonies as well as in to the psychological side of how the former slaves would have felt during this period.

I started reading and couldn't stop until I finished it in two sittings. Rachael captured my attention and my heart, she was a fully realised character and very well written. The people that Rachael met along the way were also interesting and heart breaking.

One of the most incredibly moving books I have ever read that will stay with me for a long time and one that I will always recommend.

An astonishing debut that will stay with me for a long time, River Sing Me Home is a heart-wrenching journey across the Caribbean as a woman searches for her stolen children. This is an eye-opening story of what emancipation really meant for former slaves, intertwined with the struggle of generational trauma, the joy of found family, and most of all, hope. The writing is beautiful, it reminded me strongly of Brit Bennett and Maggie O’Farrell. A top contender for my book of the year, I beg you to read it.

River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer

This incredible debut novel grabbed hold of my mind and heart, never letting go until the final paragraph. I shed tears at several points in Rachel’s journey and she’s a character I won’t forget. We meet her working on a plantation in Barbados at that strange point after slavery, when plantations were instructed to free slaves. Yet that sense of freedom was short-lived as masters were able to keep slaves for a further six years as apprentices. So, despite being freed the day afterwards started just the same, at the crack of dawn and walking to the cane fields for a day of back breaking work. Rachel is thinking of her children, several lost before they had a chance to live, but others scattered to the four winds. Her boys Micah and Thomas Augustus, then her girls Cherry Jane, Mary Grace and Mercy all taken from her in different ways. Only Cherry Jane spends a few years nearby as a house slave, but in her superior position she doesn’t acknowledge Rachel who is merely a field hand. One day she decides that she must find her children, she must know where they are and what happened to them, even if the news is that devastating final loss. Rachel says that as a slave she plants cane, but nothing of her own. So, however her children came about, Rachel feels they are what anchor her in this world and she can’t rest until she finds them. So she runs and with our hearts pounding we follow her.

As Rachel took her journey I kept thinking about my own mum. She always feels at her happiest when we’re all under her roof, all four generations. She told me that she feels like we’re all safe and there’s a feeling of completeness. I am not a mother, so until recently I hadn’t experienced anything like this, but now I am a step-mum I do get a sense of relief when both my stepdaughters are here under my roof. There’s a sense of drawing the curtains and we’re all safe. I couldn’t imagine how it must feel to have those children stripped from you as commodities to be sold. As I finished reading the book on Holocaust Memorial Day, my mind was taken to an account by a survivor on TikTok where she described her family being split apart into separate queues as they reached Auschwitz. That she was placed in one queue bound for a factory sewing uniforms, but her mother and sister were deemed unsuitable for work and in that chaos was the final moment she saw them. It’s a similar atrocity, so huge that it’s hard to imagine or compute, where a whole race of people are deemed as expendable and discarded with no more regard than swatting a fly. In amongst some powerful and distressing scenes in the book, one thing that hit me really hard was Rachel’s realisation that her emotions didn’t matter. As a younger woman she had held herself proudly and resolutely, determined that the actions of the overseer wouldn’t make her cry. As an older woman she realises that she could have owned her grief, it wouldn’t have satisfied or pleased the overseer to see her distress because she simply didn’t matter to him.

Rachel’s journey is a long one across Barbados, then over to Trinidad, and we experience every moment with her. The author provides vivid descriptions of each place Rachel experiences down to the way the earth feels under her feet. Cities give her a certain anonymity, but it’s in nature that I really felt Rachel’s freedom. The author layers sounds of birds, running water and wind through the trees with the feel of leaves or water against the skin. The water is welcoming and helps her journey: kayaking up the Demerara to look for runaway communities in the forest and Thomas Augustus; rushing down river holding an uprooted tree to avoid capture; feeling cocooned and supported by the water in a bathing pool. The runaway community are made up of escaped slaves and indigenous tribesmen who have survived the colonisation of their island and the forest both hides them and supports them. There is a sense of abundance in the food, the company and the mix of cultures that comes out in musical form. The ancient songs of Rachel’s African heritage come alive for her when mixed with slave songs and the music of the tribes represented there. It seems fitting that it is in the forest that a marriage takes place and a baby is born - these are the building blocks of the future and that future is truly free.

I found some of the characters Rachel comes across on her travels fascinating and they add something to the tale by bringing their own experience and their own adjustment and acceptance of their situation. Nobody has adopted the very part of his identity forged by the slave experience, the sense that he is no one and belongs nowhere. Despite the negative connotations of the name, being nobody allows him to take his power back, to be anonymous, to escape unseen and leave a mark nowhere. He has been transitory ever since he started running he’s been living a transitory life on the ships that travel between the islands, perhaps feeling more at home in the water than on the land he was enslaved by. I wondered whether Rachel’s quest would make a mark on him and if he would find a true home, whether that be a place or a person. I was also intrigued by Hope, whose very name embodies looking forward and has found her place in Bridgetown by entertaining paying gentlemen. She is beautiful, impeccably dressed and seems to have found a independent way of living she’s at peace with. While some people don’t want to be seen with her, Rachel is not so judgmental. After all, Rachel tells us, men have been inside her, but there she was the one who paid the price. The threat of sexual violence is alluded to but never explicit. Rachel won’t discuss or ask another woman how her children have come into being, because she knows the pain of a pregnancy where the woman prays that the child she carries has no resemblance to it’s father. Equally she knows what it’s like to dread the birth of a child in case they bear a resemblance to a man greatly loved and lost forever. We don’t know about the conception of any of Rachel’s children. Her ‘pickney’, as she calls them, are hers and hers alone and it is this that makes it imperative that she finds them. She needs to know about them, in order to feel whole.

The whole journey is littered with joys and terrible grief, but Rachel knows she must keep going. She meets others who have started to build a new life, placing the past firmly behind them and never pining for it. They live firmly in the here and now with questions left unanswered and people left behind. For Rachel that isn’t enough. Her children are like the scattered pieces of a broken vase. While she doesn’t expect it to be perfect and knows that there will be cracks and missing pieces, Rachel is putting the vase back together and she will pour a substance into the cracks, bringing the pieces together until her past is whole. The substance used in Japanese Kintsugi pottery is usually gold, the cracks making the piece more beautiful. In Rachel’s case that substance is love. Love for those here, those found but far away and those gone forever. An all encompassing love symbolised by the birth of a baby in the forest. There was a ‘feeling of complete, absorbing, unqualified love. The baby was a stranger, without speech, unknowable. It would be years before he could say what was on his mind. And yet, love did not wait. Love was there in the beginning – even before the beginning. Love needed no words, no introduction. Existence was enough.’