The Mapmaker's Children Review

About the Book

When Sarah Brown, daughter of abolitionist John Brown, realizes that her artistic talents may be able to help save the lives of slaves fleeing north, she becomes one of the Underground Railroad’s leading mapmakers, taking her cues from the slave code quilts and hiding her maps within her paintings. She boldly embraces this calling after being told the shocking news that she can’t bear children, but as the country steers toward bloody civil war, Sarah faces difficult sacrifices that could put all she loves in peril.
   Eden, a modern woman desperate to conceive a child with her husband, moves to an old house in the suburbs and discovers a porcelain head hidden in the root cellar—the remains of an Underground Railroad doll with an extraordinary past of secret messages, danger and deliverance.
   Ingeniously plotted to a riveting end, Sarah and Eden’s woven lives connect the past to the present, forcing each of them to define courage, family, love, and legacy in a new way. (Goodreads)

My Review

*Note: this book is not published by a Christian publisher and there are some cuss words. This is just a note to my usual readers.

I am also up for a new historical fiction story and this is a new author to me as well. This book surprised me with it's historical facts and really an intriguing storyline. The story flip flops between present and past and the house that ties them together. I enjoyed both storylines, the present day one was a lot of about infertility but I liked the characters. The historical aspect was a bit slow at times but the second half of the book really took off and was faster paced. The book takes you from Virginia to California and I loved reading about the older houses. I grew up in an older home from the 1800s and I loved it. Sarah Brown's character is unique and I liked reading about her history in the back of the book. There's a great story about marriage as well that surprised me with Eden and her husband. Overall this book turned out to be really very good and I can recommend it to those who enjoy history and a good storyline.

Four stars.

"I received this book from Blogging for Books for free in exchange for an honest review."