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The Last Runaway

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The Last Runaway

By: Tracy Chevalier
Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow
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Laurel Lefkow reads the stunning new novel from the bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring

When modest Quaker Honor Bright sails from Bristol with her sister, she is fleeing heartache for a new life in America, far from home. But tragedy leaves her alone and vulnerable, torn between two worlds and dependent on the kindness of strangers. Life in 1850s Ohio is precarious and unsentimental. The sun is too hot, the thunderstorms too violent, the snow too deep. The roads are spattered with mud and spit. The woods are home to skunks and porcupines and raccoons. They also shelter slaves escaping north to freedom.

Should Honor hide runaways from the ruthless men who hunt them down? The Quaker community she has joined may oppose slavery in principle, but does it have the courage to help her defy the law? Set in the tangled forests and sunlit cornfields of Ohio, Tracy Chevalier's vivid novel is the story of bad men and spirited women, surprising marriages and unlikely friendships, and the remarkable power of defiance.

©2013 Tracy Chevalier (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Fiction Historical Fiction Heartfelt Law Ohio
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As well written as you would expect from Tracy Chevalier with plenty of tension and worry about how the heroine will end up.

It was hard to be a quaker during slavery

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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

this book was great to listen to, it just flowed all the way through, you really felt for the characters and wanted to know what was going to happen next. an interesting, easy listen. a girl trying to find her way in the world, just like the rest of us . . . .

making your way through life

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When Dorsetshire Quaker Honor Bright is jilted, she emigrates to America along with her sister Mary, who is intending to marry an established emigré from the same community now running a drapery in a small town in Ohio. But Mary dies of Yellow Fever on the journey and Honor finds herself a stranger in a strange land, entirely dependent upon the charity of her dead sister's fiancé.



A hasty marriage to local farmer Jack Haymaker seems to be the answer but Jack is part of an intimidating family, at the head of which stands his formidable mother Judith who is less than impressed with her son's choice of partner.



The gap between Honor and the Haymakers begins to widen when she becomes involved with the underground rail road of people smuggling slaves to freedom in Canada. Eventually a crisis is reached and both Honor and Jack are forced to make difficult choices.



Tracey Chevalier is an immensely visual writer, able to bring a scene to life with a few well-chosen details - the gleam of light on a bowl, the curve of a lock of hair, the colour of a ribbon - and this is a book that draws its strength from the intensely realised minutiae of domestic life.



It is marred a little by a tendency towards simplification and sentimentality in the latter third of the book, particularly in the depiction of the black characters, and the dénoument feels a little too neat. Nevertheless, I found this beautifully-read story to be both entertaining and moving.

America, Land of Opportunity and Slavery

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I mainly decided to listen to this book to hear about the Quaker lifestyle and about their early settlement in the states. I enjoyed the book, the narrator had a pleasant reading voice,sometimes the narrator puts me off a book, and the storyline is good, if a little slow at times. A bit too much emphasis on quilts and describing them for my liking. An enjoyable listen all round

a pleasant book

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A beautifully written book that I have read several time. You will not be able to put this down as you will be captivated with it from start to finish .

Unforgivable read

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