Exiled south by Harriet Cannon – Review by Roxsanne Lesieur.

Exiled South by Harriet Cannon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lizbeth Gordon is a woman with two sons, a husband and a family she adores, that is until one day when she recovers the terrible news that her husband has died in a car accident. She is devastated and so are her sons, but as she is trying to come to terms with it and sort out what she needs to organise she receives more news which leaves her reeling. As she explains to her sons what has happened, she makes a drastic decision which leads to leaving everything behind and moving forward with a return to her childhood home, as well as dreams she had once left behind. It was something she never thought she would do, but what she doesn’t expect is that she finds out about a family history she never wanted to consider before.

As she listens to the history of her relatives, she discovers information she never truly considered as no more than tall tales, but it leads her to search for whomever she can find and their stories. This journey takes her through South Carolina and the Civil War where the family lived in Charleston and how they survived it all, as well as the Reconstruction which followed. There are tales of blockade runners who learned about their trade in Scotland and how the Civil War affected the types of trade and transportation and how it lead some of them being stopped from ever returning to their homeland.

Meanwhile, as Lizbeth follows this trail, she receives a request from a Brazilian school who need someone with her skills and accepts the job offer, what she doesn’t expect is that she meets someone with the same surname as her. It is while she is there that she discovers the lost family she never knew she had and that the stories are even more harrowing than the ones she has just learned about. This is a story of historical prejudice, racism and despair where one family is torn apart by institutional bias and harrowing sacrifices and the hope that one woman holds that she can reunite them through love and friendship. It is an emotional ride as you learn about history through the eyes of a fictional family which will lead you to think about the hard questions and what digging into family history may lead to.

Reviewed by @roxsannel

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