Glory over Everything: Beyond The Kitchen House

The year is 1830 and Jamie Pyke, a celebrated silversmith and notorious ladies’ man, is keeping a deadly secret. Passing as a wealthy white aristocrat in Philadelphian society, Jamie is now living a life he could never have imagined years before when he was a runaway slave, son of a southern black slave and her master. But Jamie’s carefully constructed world is threatened when he discovers that his married socialite lover, Caroline, is pregnant and his beloved servant Pan, to whose father Jamie owes his own freedom, has been captured and sold into slavery in the South. Fleeing the consequences of his deceptions, Jamie embarks on a trip to a North Carolina plantation to save Pan from the life he himself barely escaped as a boy. With the help of a fearless slave, Sukey, who has taken the terrified young boy under her wing, Jamie navigates their way, racing against time and their ruthless pursuers through the Virginia backwoods, the Underground Railroad, and the treacherous Great Dismal Swamp.

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384 pages

Average rating: 8.71

7 RATINGS

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2 REVIEWS

Community Reviews

margardenlady
Dec 27, 2023
8/10 stars
Quite an adventure. Although the story is told through several narrators, our primary protagonist is Jamie. He was born to a mulatto slave woman after a rape by the master, then raised as a brother to his sperm donor. He flees as a young teen to Philadelphia when the truth of his birth is revealed. He makes a life for himself, but ends up venturing south in search of a young black boy who was taken for a slave from the docks in Philly. Much hardship ensues, but helpers are revealed along the way.
Anonymous
Jul 11, 2023
10/10 stars
I loved this book! I read The Kitchen House years ago with my book club and that story always stuck with me, I believe Glory Over Everything will as well. I highly recommend both.

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