Elaine Kelly Bryant

For much of the twentieth century, a series of terrible events—abuse, both physical and psychological, and even deaths—took places inside orphanages. The survivors have been trying to tell their astonishing stories for a long time, but disbelief, secrecy, and trauma have kept them from breaking through. For ten years, Christine Kenneally has been on a quest to uncover the harrowing truth.

In the 1800s American South, Harriet Jacobs is enslaved and tormented by a cruel master. Jacobs outwits her tormentor and works in the cause of abolition and reform, and helps newly freed slaves with education and aftercare. In 2012, Timothy Ballard encounters a grieving father in Haiti whose three-year-old son has been kidnapped and sold into slavery, along with thousands of children who were orphaned after an earthquake devastated the country. Inspired by Harriet Jacobs, Tim pledges to track down the missing child to establish Operation Underground Railroad.