River Sing Me Home: A GMA Book Club Pick

Loved this book! Can’t believe this is a debut novel! I want more from this author.

This is a song for all people, not just one. It is in the being, in family, in heritage and love, that pulls together what is broken. If you dare to share it. See it. It can change you.

This story really described slavery in the islands. I liked that it was loosely based on a real life. I would have liked too see how their lives progressed in the free town but the story held my interest throughout.

The "Turning Pages" club members felt that although this book had a slow beginning, it was a journey with "Rachel", worth traveling to locate her children.This was a story that has not been shared often about slave mothers trying to locate their children after emancipation.This is a book worth reading to learn about the lives of island slaves.The author provides great character development and scenery description.

Beautful, heartbreaking story. Well written, history based book. The bravery shown by Rachel is indicative of former slaves searching for their family. I highly recommend it.

I read the back of this book while waiting in line at the library to vote. Bought it on KU before I even left. It’s such a moving, poignant book. Highly recommend.

Best book I have ever read. It moved me like I haven't felt in a long time! You will gain so much.

This story is so well told, woven together with sacrifice and hope. And strong family connection, even when separated by cruelness and disdain. Amazing book.

Set in a place I have very little knowledge of.The story carried me along with their tales.The hardships and hard times they had ,and the powerful inner strength was inspiring.

Although as a teacher in Florida I had students from throughout the Caribbean and knew of the horrors of slavery that existed in this country and throughout the islands, this book surprised me. Yes, it exposed the horrors of servitude, the willful destruction of family structure, and the inhumanity of the slave owners. But the underlying theme of this book was hope, the bravery and faith of one strong woman to take almost insurmountable risks to reunite with her children.The author. Is a poet who uses the simple vocabulary of the slaves to create an enthralling story.

The book River Sing Me Home by Elenor Shearer is a story of a complex journey. It is a novel that captures the possibility of what memory can have. What opportunities for someone have to go back into one's history to find their family? It shares the story of motherhood and external and internal journeys. In a river town, Shearer skillfully immerses readers in their journeys.Shearer's vivid descriptions bring the setting to life. River Sing Me Home is a thought-provoking read that is highly recommended for those seeking a profound exploration of the impact of familial bonds. I would rate it a ⅘ for its way of telling stories impacted by erasure through such vivid explanations.

This is a good historical fiction focused on the Caribbean and how slavery impacted the islands. That being said, it mostly focused on Rachel’s story/narrative, so you really didn’t learn that much of the nuances as I probably would have liked, although it still told the important story of a mother searching for her children that were cruelly torn from her.I liked that all of Rachel’s children had different stories…not everything was a happy reunion, or a painful meeting - but everything was so incredibly nuanced and I think Shearer did a solid job of landing that there are different types of freedom for the characters involved.I enjoyed this novel and it went by pretty quickly for me as I was fairy invested. That being said, it was obviously a debut novel. Some things were repetitive, the author, although she had a way with words that were quite beautiful at times, still erred no the side of telling more than showing. And she also left a lot of things up to the “vibe”. Ie, when Rachel and the others met with Nuno’s people, how much Rachel “understood.”? That was really confusing to me how she could infer meaning from languages she couldn’t speak.All in all I’ll give this a solid 3.5 stars.

This takes us through the life of Rachel and the children she loved and lost. Some died at birth and the ones that lived was taken from her through slavery. Rachel was in danger if being raped so she escaped! Through her journey to freedom she was determined to find the children who by now became adults. Rachel succeeded and their lives each took a different path. Kudos to the Author Eleanor Shearer!

Narrative style is really important to me when I read books. It plays a key role in actually transporting the reader into the world created by the author. I found myself completely immersed within just the first few pages. I felt the hope, resilience, trepidation, fear, and gratitude right along with the main character, Rachel. The author did a extraordinary job describing just enough to inspire empathy in the readers without capitalizing on sensationalizing the horrors of slavery through shock and awe. Although resolution of some events in the story seemed fortuitously coincidental, I disagree that it took away from the story. I felt that it enriched the story. There are plenty of horrendous events that slaves have had to endure in order to survive that were acknowledged in the book. But the overall theme of this story is not about the horrors of life and the worst possible scenarios that every event can play out. This book is about the courage of a mother through her love for her children. It's about the resilience of people who continue to find hope in hopeless situations. It's about the kindness of people who continue to give when they do not even have enough for themselves. It's about highlighting humanity against the face of greed and cruelty.

I liked the book a lot. Kind of ending with me wanting more in terms of a couple unanswered topics. No mention of Rachel’s children’s father(s), who was the well-dressed woman on the boat. The ending was a bit unbelievable; however I understand that many fathomable things happened. Many things about the book just seemed a bit far fetched. I did appreciate the ties to the history of Caribbean slavery.

This is a good book. It is interesting - I had not read anything about this before - and very well written. The characters are easy to imagine and empathize with. There is a character named Nobody, and for some reason, every time his name was mentioned, I immediately thought of nobody the pronoun instead of the person, so that part was confusing for me. However, I am going to pass this book on to several friends. It is hard to put down and a quick read. Given the subject matter, "enjoyable" is probably not the right word, but it is certainly captivating.

It made me feel so many emotions. The only thing I didn't like is that things like this story and worse actually occurred. I said redemptive only to describe the way I feel for Rachel's struggle. It seemed that even though she was not responsible, she carried the burden of losing her children as if there had been anything she could have done about it. In the end, she, through her sheer will saved those who wished to be saved. The book broke my heart, made me cry, made my heart race along with theirs... If this is just Ms. Shearer's fist novel, I can't wait for the next!

"River Sing Me Home," by Eleanor Shearer is a fascinating and poignant story of Rachel, a runaway slave/apprentice in Barbados whose mission became to find her children who were separated from her in one of the cruel practices of slavery. What I love about reading historical fiction books is that I learn so many things I didn't know. For example, I never knew that Britain outlawed slavery in its colonies in 1833, well ahead of America's Emancipation Proclamation. In the Caribbean, though, slavery was replaced temporarily by "apprenticeships," that required the former slaves to work for their current masters on the sugar plantations for up to 6 years. Protagonist Rachel was so disappointed to learn that the "end" of slavery did not result in immediate freedom that she dared to run away. If caught, she could face punishment up to death. But she pushed ahead, determined to find her five children that had been sold away from the plantation where she worked. Once her quest began, readers are taken on a remarkable journey during which Rachel relied solely on word of mouth to follow leads to where her children might be. She was constantly looking over her shoulder for the plantation overseer who was still searching for her. She encountered some very helpful people and dangerous persons as well. Readers should discover for themselves how her search played out. There will be joys and disappointments. I am so glad that Amazon included this book among their suggested titles to read for Women's Month.

River Sing Me Home is the debut novel from Eleanor Shearer—the daughter of actor Paul Shearer and an Oxford graduate, Shearer has written a polished and lovely story of a mother looking for her long-separated children across the Caribbean colonies.I have two objections to the book. One, there is very little description, which makes the narrative feel strangely facile and muffled. A novel about the brutality of enslavement and the piercing anguish of losing children isn’t the kind of feel-good that gets you picked for Reese’s Book Club, but this is the only novel set in the Caribbean that doesn’t mention the Caribbean. If you don’t know something about the geography and history of Barbados and Trinidad, you aren’t going to be transported by the prose.My second objection is that the plot is wildly improbable. Rachel, an escaped “apprentice,” is able to track down all of her children with no difficulty at all; every character she meets either helps her (and then conveniently vanishes from the story) or gives her extensively detailed expository information. Even her former “employers” don’t bother finding her. Much of the plot advances with coincidental meetings, so at least this is a quick read. I’m sure it’ll be optioned for a movie, too.

River Sing Me Home is a powerful story of the strength and perseverance of a mother's search for her five children, all of whom had been taken from her during her time as a slave on a sugar cane plantation in Barbados. We follow the protagonist (Rachel) across land and sea, through forests and up rivers as she searches, and finds, one child after the other. Now grown, each child has come to their own way of life, always with a driving force of surviving as a slave (or former slave) on a Caribbean island in the days and months after emancipation has been declared. What Rachel finds is not always what she expects or hopes, and she is called upon to accept each child's reality, painful as some may be. Along her way Rachel meets characters that are of great help to her, from the emancipated dressmaker in Barbados, to a nomadic former slave who gives up his life on the sea to join Rachel and one of her first found children. The end of the book is a hopeful one, yet the powerful message of the book is universal. A mother's love fuels self-sacrifice. That same love allows us to accept—often painfully—the individual journeys and associated outcome of our children's lives. And human resilience is required to accept that the freedom we imagine is very often not the freedom that actually awaits. If you're looking for shocking twists and turns this book is not for you. In reading the book, I felt that I was on a linear journey right along side this courageous mother and her companions, traveling across seas, over land and upriver. Especially resonant for those readers who relate to the pain of losing children and the strength of the never dimming love for those children that fuel courage and sacrifice.