Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. Their first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway,...

"A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence"--

The only way to escape the purgatory of the Florence Stockade was to die. So on February 3, 1865, Zebulon Hogan died and was buried in the prisoners' cemetery. It was young Ebenezer Chase, a runaway slave, who saw his hand clawing out of the dirt over the shallow grave. Zeb has a mission far beyond escape: he's sworn an oath to the other prisoners to hunt and kill a traitorous sergeant. Zeb's problem is that he knows nothing of the surrounding country....