An Undisturbed Peace

Book excerpt: Hailed as “the finest depiction of the infamous Trail of Tears,” this unflinching novel sheds light on a tragic history (Pat Conroy). As the tribes of the South make the grueling journey across the Mississippi River, a trio of disparate characters is united by a “far-reaching story of love, courage, and honor” (Booklist). Greensborough, North Carolina, 1828. Abrahan Bento Sassaporta Naggar has traveled to America from the filthy streets of East London in search of a better life. But Abe’s visions of a privileged apprenticeship in the Sassaporta Brothers’ empire are soon replaced with the grim reality of indentured servitude. Some fifty miles west, Dark Water of the Mountains, the daughter of a powerful Cherokee chief, leads a life of irreverent solitude. Twenty years ago, she renounced her family’s plans for her to marry a wealthy white man—a decision that soon proves fateful. And in Georgia, a black slave named Jacob has resigned himself to a life of loss and injustice in a Cherokee city of refuge for criminals. From the author of Marching to Zion and One More River comes a sweeping novel of American history. As their stories converge in the shameful machinations of history, three outsiders will bear witness to the horrors known as Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act—just as they also discover the possibility for hope. See why Library Journal raves, “This absorbing and vivid portrait of 19th-century America will attract serious historical fiction fans.”