This is a powerful story (or three stories within a story) of three women: Elizabeth Barrett (later +Browning), who is confined to her sick bed for most of the book; a field worker in the Jamaican sugar cane estate run by Elizabeth's wayward brother and a servant in the household of the same estate. The stories begin at three different points in time over a 3 year period, and converge. I'm not normally a fan of these kinds of structures, because I think it unsually makes the story unnecessarily complex, but not in this case. It's relatively easy to follow, and builds suspense and makes the story interesting in a way that it wouldn't be if told linearly. The story takes place just after slavery has ended, but the ex-slaves are effectively in the same position. It tells some of the now familiar story of the awfulness and brutality of slavery, especially for women, but I think it does this in a very powerful and personal way, revealing more about the reason the people involved make the choices they do. The voices of the slave/servant women are told in a dialect of English (not pidgin, but something it), but once you get into it, it's not that difficult to follow. The book was long listed for the Orange Prize, and I'm surprised to see that it hasn't been read more by LibraryThing readers. I would highly recommend it ( )