VEIL OF PEARLS

Veil of Pearls by Mary Lu Tyndale will hit the market July 1. I think I finished it in the hospital, but I'm not sure. Anyway, it doesn't matter, I did finish it and it was wonderful. I do like Mary Lu's books and this one was no exception.

The setting begins in Barbarous, an island I love. A slave who would pass for a white woman escapes her master and ends up in Charleston, South Carolina. She knows she'll be found. She hides in a orphanage. She is a healer, and eventually a doctor finds her and asks her to come to work for him. Remember we are in the South before the Civil War. No one would ask a black person to work for them for money. This is what makes this so interesting. She passes as a white woman.

I could tell you the whole story, but I won't. It is not a pirate story, but there is a ship involved. Let me give you the cover and the blurb on the back. If you are a fan of Mary Lu, you will love this. It''s one of these, "I can't put it down" books. I give it 5 stars.

  Be swept away to Charleston of 1811, a city bustling with immigrants like Adalia, who is a runaway slave so light-skinned that no one guesses her past. Terrified her secret will be discovered, she settles into a quiet life making herbal remedies for a local doctor. But when Morgan, the handsome son of a prominent family, sweeps her into his glamorous world—a world in which the truth about Adalia’s heritage would ruin them both—suspicions and petty jealousies are aroused. What will Morgan do when he discovers that the woman he has fallen in love with is a runaway slave?