The World We Left Behind — Andrea Blackstone

At Rutherford Rocks Plantation, deep wounds grow under the rule of rich Alabama landowners. After John Brower secretly fathers a child with Hazel, an enslaved woman, his wife Catherine's rage leads her down a brutal and bitter path. She gains a dark reputation as one of the cruelest slaveholders-until an unexpected love shakes her world. Meanwhile, Catherine's sister, Sarah Ann, turns against her upbringing to become an abolitionist, changing the lives of Aunt Sarah, a former cook, and her children. The World We Left Behind, a historical fiction novel, is a saga about betrayal, survival, hope, and the tangled legacies of a plantation haunted by its past. This is the first book in the Black Water Cove series.