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A Reckoning

A Novel

A Novel

A Novel

By Linda Spalding

By Linda Spalding

By Linda Spalding

By Linda Spalding

By Linda Spalding
Read by MacLeod Andrews

By Linda Spalding
Read by MacLeod Andrews

Best Seller
Paperback $16.95

Feb 12, 2019 | ISBN 9780525435129

Ebook $10.99

Mar 13, 2018 | ISBN 9781524747015

Audiobook Download $20.00

Mar 13, 2018 | 605 Minutes

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    A Reckoning by Linda Spalding
    Paperback $16.95
    Feb 12, 2019 | ISBN 9780525435129

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      Feb 12, 2019 | ISBN 9780525435129

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      Mar 13, 2018 | ISBN 9781524747015

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    About A Reckoning

    1855, Virginia: the Dickinson farm, run by brothers Benjamin and John, is visited by a Northern abolitionist who secretly distributes compasses, maps, and knives to the people enslaved there. Bry is the first slave to flee, determined to find his mother and daughter already in Canada. His escape inspires a dozen others.
     
    Without their labor, the farm falters and is forfeited to the bank. John Dickinson, who is also a circuit-riding preacher, gathers his flock into a wagon train to find a new life in the west. But he carries a dangerous secret that compels him to abandon the group at the last minute, and his wife, daughters, and thirteen-year-old son, Martin, must now face life on the trail without him. After a fateful encounter along the way, Martin and Bry will hatch a plot to get Bry safely to Canada, but each member of the family will be irrevocably changed by the journey. Told with astonishing empathy, A Reckoning brilliantly re-creates an America that was: the undefiled beauty of its lands; the grand mix of settlers and Native Americans, blacks and whites; and people leaving one life behind for another they can only just begin to see.

    About A Reckoning

    It’s 1855, and the Dickinson farm, in the bottom corner of Virginia, is already in debt when a Northern abolitionist arrives and creates havoc among the slaves. Determined to find his mother and daughter, who are already free in Canada, Bry is the first slave to flee, and his escape inspires a dozen others. Soon, the farm, owned by one brother and managed by another, is forfeited to the bank.

    One of the brothers, who is also a circuit-riding preacher, gathers his flock into a wagon train to find a new life in the west. But John Dickinson has a dangerous secret that compels him to abandon the group at the last minute, and his wife, two daughters, and thirteen-year-old son, Martin, now face life on the trail and an unknown future alone. After a fateful encounter along the way, Martin and Bry will hatch a plot to get Bry safely to Canada, but each member of the family will be changed, tormented, excited, and exposed by the journey.

    Linda Spalding brings an astonishing empathy to the telling of the fate of each of the travelers and to their shifting inner lives—compoundedof grief, fear, anger, and hope. Rich in character and incident, A Reckoning brilliantly-creates an America that was: the undefiled beauty of its lands and the grand mix of settlers and Native Americans; blacks and whites; riverboat captains, small businessmen, and people leaving one life behind for another they can only just begin to see. It moves with irresistible force toward an ending at once cataclysmic, inevitable, and profound.

    About A Reckoning

    It’s 1855, and the Dickinson farm, in the bottom corner of Virginia, is already in debt when a Northern abolitionist arrives and creates havoc among the slaves. Determined to find his mother and daughter, who are already free in Canada, Bry is the first slave to flee, and his escape inspires a dozen others. Soon, the farm, owned by one brother and managed by another, is forfeited to the bank.

    One of the brothers, who is also a circuit-riding preacher, gathers his flock into a wagon train to find a new life in the west. But John Dickinson has a dangerous secret that compels him to abandon the group at the last minute, and his wife, two daughters, and thirteen-year-old son, Martin, now face life on the trail and an unknown future alone. After a fateful encounter along the way, Martin and Bry will hatch a plot to get Bry safely to Canada, but each member of the family will be changed, tormented, excited, and exposed by the journey.

    Linda Spalding brings an astonishing empathy to the telling of the fate of each of the travelers and to their shifting inner lives—compoundedof grief, fear, anger, and hope. Rich in character and incident, A Reckoning brilliantly-creates an America that was: the undefiled beauty of its lands and the grand mix of settlers and Native Americans; blacks and whites; riverboat captains, small businessmen, and people leaving one life behind for another they can only just begin to see. It moves with irresistible force toward an ending at once cataclysmic, inevitable, and profound.

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    Listen to a sample from A Reckoning

    Also by Linda Spalding

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    Also by Linda Spalding

    The Purchase
    Who Named the Knife
    See all books by Linda Spalding

    Also by Linda Spalding

    The Purchase
    Who Named the Knife
    See all books by Linda Spalding

    About Linda Spalding

    Linda Spalding was born in Kansas and lived in Mexico and Hawaii before immigrating to Canada in 1982. She is the author of four critically acclaimed novels, The Purchase (awarded Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award), Daughters of Captain Cook, The Paper Wife, and (with… More about Linda Spalding

    About Linda Spalding

    Linda Spalding was born in Kansas and lived in Mexico and Hawaii before immigrating to Canada in 1982. She is the author of four critically acclaimed novels, The Purchase (awarded Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award), Daughters of Captain Cook, The Paper Wife, and (with… More about Linda Spalding

    About Linda Spalding

    Linda Spalding was born in Kansas and lived in Mexico and Hawaii before immigrating to Canada in 1982. She is the author of four critically acclaimed novels, The Purchase (awarded Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award), Daughters of Captain Cook, The Paper Wife, and (with… More about Linda Spalding

    Product Details

    Category: Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Paperback | $16.95
    Published by Anchor
    Feb 12, 2019 | 320 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9780525435129

    Category: Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Ebook | $10.99
    Published by Anchor
    Mar 13, 2018 | 320 Pages | ISBN 9781524747015

    Category: Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction | Audiobooks

    Audiobook Download | $20.00
    Published by Random House Audio
    Mar 13, 2018 | 605 Minutes | ISBN 9780525589990
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    Praise

    “A beautiful and brilliant work of art, vulnerable, driven, and unsettling. . . . Extraordinary.” —Madeleine Thien, author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing

    “Brilliant and harrowing. . . . There is something of Mark Twain in this telling and something of Willa Cather, a narrative as ingenious in its mix of points of view as Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.” —Robert Hass, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Time and Materials

    “A dark and mythopoetic novel . . . Beautifully rendered. . . . . Epic.” —The Globe and Mail

    “Excellent. . . . A drama set in the late 1850s as conflicts over slavery and abolition tear apart a Virginia plantation family. . . . Rife with historical detail.” —Publishers Weekly

    “Timely, historically sensitive. . . . A literary saga. . . . Explores the ramifications of slavery on the next generation of the Dickinson family. . . . Spectacularly described.” —Booklist

    “An engrossing, deftly crafted narrative. . . . Taking up the lives of the Dickinson family from her last historical novel, Spalding follows the misfortunes of patriarch Daniel’s sons.” —Kirkus Reviews

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