This is another one of those big prize winning books that I just don't get. This one feels like it has been written by a student at school for their history lesson, there are some terrible lines, things like "the necklace of ears was worn round his neck" no way! a necklace worn round the neck, who'd have guessed the crazy stuff they got up to in the olden times before Facebook. I can only guess that that some bribery was done to get this included on the shortlist.

The story itself was dull for most of the time, I found myself wanting to skip ahead, luckily I stuck at it and got to read some of the really good parts of the story, finding out about Mabel was probably the best part.

I was thinking that maybe this was gonna be another To the Lighthouse book, luckily it was saved by the arrival of an actual Underground Railroad. woooo

Interesting ideal for a story but boringly executed, I wouldn't recommend this one. 2.5 stars.