What a wonderful read! Kathleen Grissom is an amazing author! I was attached to every character! Great read! Highly recommend.

I loved everything about this book. The writing, the story, the characters, the setting, the cover, everything! Lavinia and Belle become apart of your life as soon as you start reading. Such rich details I could picture the story in my mind as I was immersed in the lives of the people of Tall Oakes plantation. Remarkable read.

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom is exactly the kind of book I love, characters that you fall in love (or hate) with, and a setting you feel transported to- all woven together by a truly gifted storyteller.

This novel is told through two viewpoints, Lavinia, a young Irish girl who's parents die on their voyage to America, and is subsequently made an indentured servant to the Captain in order to repay her family's debt and Belle, a beloved daughter of the Captain's, who also happens to be one of his slaves.

This story is entirely captivating from the first page to the last, the characters are authentic, well developed and Grissom does an exceptional job with the flow of the story because there is never a moment where it falls into a lull.
I highly recommend this novel, it's really does have it all!

It is 1791 and Lavinia McCarten only remembers being handed from a white man to a black man and hearing instructions to: "Give her to Belle. She's hers for the kitchen" and looking up to see a huge clapboard house that was painted white and had an enormous porch framing the entire length of the front of the house. Belle worked in the kitchen house as a cook for the Pyke family.

Lavinia, almost seven-years-old had been taken from a ship coming from Ireland after her parents both died and her brother, Cardigan, was sold. She was a frail girl who vomited up all food and liquid she was fed but with Belle's persistence Lavinia was soon eating and feeling well. Now living on a large tobacco plantation she grows up part of the black slave families. Mama Mae, Belle, Ben, Pappa, Dory, Fanny, Beattie and a whole slew of other characters who all take her under their wing and come to love her as if she was their own. The call her Abinia and the black children become her brother's and sister's.

Captain Pyke and his wife have two children themselves, four-year-old Sally and eleven-year-old Marshall who Lavinia will someday get to know better than she had ever anticipated. One day all the children are playing and Marshall being a rather outspoken boy with a nasty, violent streak pushes his sister Sally too hard on the swing and she ends up dying! Of course Marshall blamed Ben, one of the black slaves and he was about to be hung until Belle pleaded with Marshall to tell the truth that he had in fact pushed Sally off the swing. Marshall was silent own defense and only with Belle's pleading that they were going to kill Ben did Lavinia blurt out that Marshall had done it.

As the story goes on it alternates being told both by Lavinia and Belle which was an awesome way to tell this particular story and important for reasons you'll see when you've read the book yourself. Marshall becomes a more and more sinister and violent young man who grows into an even more abhorrent adult and the troubles Lavinia suffers through as well as all the black slaves, derives from or through Marshall.

The violence, the action, the drama, the fast pace will keep you glued to the edge of your seat. I read and read and read and read late into each night for two nights until I'd finished and then was sorry I read it so quickly. This is one novel I hope and pray the ghosts of the past pester Ms. Grissom to pen a sequel.


Excellent, excellent debut novel! Standing ovation for sure, DON'T MISS THIS ONE!

I read this book for a reading challenge and had wanted to read it for a number of months. I wanted to really like the story, especially in the final third of the book, but I felt that the book didn't really grab me by the end of the book. It was a really good book and I really liked the premise of the novel, but it seemed to lose a little steam by the end of the book and a bit of the luster of the book that I had with the book had disappeared. I was probably thinking to highly the book too much but it did disappoint me and I am glad I didn't buy the book.

Orphaned on the overseas journey from Ireland to America, Lavinia is taken by the captain back to his tobacco plantation in Virginia where she is to work in the kitchen house. Although set-apart from the other slaves by the white of her skin, Lavinia soon finds herself adopted by her black counterparts. As she becomes accustomed to life as a slave and grows attached to her new family, the dividing line between what's black and white becomes blurred. As she grows up it becomes clear that the color of Lavinia's skin is going to have a greater say in her future than she would like. Destined for a different fate than those around her and not wanting to abandon those she cares for most, Lavinia is left with some heart-wrenching decisions that offer no other outcome than tragedy.

"...I would be in a position to cast favour on my waiting family, and I spent many hours daydreaming of how we might improve on their homes and find ways to ease their workload. I took the fantasy so far that I even believed it possible Marshall would give them their freedom one day..." The Kitchen House, page 233.

The Kitchen House is one of the most powerful novels I have read to date. Alcoholism, abuse, sexual violence and murder are some of the most painful aspects that make up this tragic yet heart warming tale of slavery at the turn of the nineteenth century. I am often irked when an author generates too many characters in their story, but in this case I found it more of a blessing. I fell in love with every last one of them. From the innocent Lavinia and her surrogate mother Belle to the evil and tormenting overseer Rankin, every one of Kathleen Grissom's characters is as memorable as the rest. All of the characters illicit a deep sense of concern for their wellbeing. I truly could not put this book down. Any time I would myself thinking 'yes, aha, I know exactly how this is going to turn out', low and behold it turned out a far cry different. As painful and tragic a story as it is, I simply did not want it to end.

The dual narratives of Lavinia and Belle were, at first, somewhat irritating, but as the story progressed, I found myself anticipating the other character's perspective. In the end, the only real bone I had to pick with Grissom was her lack of detail when it came to the most tragic scenes in the novel. A murder and several incidents of violence occur and are not accounted for very well. All of the positive events are described so as to leave the reader feeling overwhelmed as if they were actually there, but the darkest aspects of the story were swept away quickly perhaps to make it less traumatic for the reader. I was so engrossed in the characters lives that I truly wanted to be able to experience these tragic events with them so as to be able to further that connection. The story was still fantastic, but I think it would have benefitted even more from a better account of these dark details.

Lastly, I have to give Grissom kudos on what to me seemed like a very original twist on a widely covered topic. It could just be that I'm Canadian and am not as up on the history of slavery as I should be, but I can't recall ever having heard of white indentured labourers during the time of slavery and found this a very appealing twist.

Every so often a book just reaches out and grabs you. The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom was one of those books for me.

It's 1791. Lavinia is 7 yrs old and her entire family has perished on the boat from Ireland to America. The captain takes her to his own plantation as an indentured servant. She is sent to live with the slaves who run the kitchen house. Abinia, as she comes to be known, is welcomed into the hearts and homes of Mama Mae, her daughter Belle (who is the captain's illegitimate daughter) and their extended families. They love her as one of their own, despite the fact that she is white.

As Lavinia grows, she is taken to the big house to help with the captain's wife, who is battling an addiction to opium. It is here that Lavinia finally has to acknowledge the chasm between black and white, master and slave. And where her place is. As she grows older, circumstances conspire and she is forced to make difficult choices that have grievous repercussions. This is s a very bare bones synopsis as there is so much more to this book.

Grissom forced me to break one of my cardinal rules. I never, ever, read ahead in a book. I got so caught up in the story, the characters and the hurtling plot that I was reading way too fast to take it all in. I had to find out what happened, then go back and slowly take the journey to the event.

Grissom's descriptions of the settings, social life, characters and dialogue truly had them jumping off the page. Indeed, Grissom herself says that "For the most part, Lavinia and Belle dictated the story to me. From the beginning it became quite clear that if I tried to embellish or change their story, their narration would stop." I became invested in each and every character, loving some and hating others, but each evoking emotion is this reader.

The Kitchen House is told in alternating chapters from Lavinia and Belle's viewpoints The same event takes on very different hues when seen through another set of eyes.

Slavery is a main theme of the book. But slavery in many different forms - addictions, societal expectations and mores as well as racial. But so is strength, again in many forms.


I literally could not put The Kitchen House down. It's destined to be a keeper in my library.

The Kitchen House was an absolutely wonderful reading experience.

What I liked best about this book were the characters. They became people I wanted to know. When something good happened I was happy for them and sad when a not-so-great event occurred. The author made fictional characters seem so real that they jumped off the page. More than once I was brought to tears and felt real sympathy for these people. Most of the characters were complex personalities dealing with complex problems. Though the main antagonist (and it could be argued just who the main antagonist is) is not likeable, the character was written with sympathy and while I did not excuse his behavior, I could easily understand the reasons behind his conduct.

The other great thing about The Kitchen House was the plot. My heart was pounding after reading the first page. I didn't know exactly what was going on but the small bit that I read gave me a powerful sense of fear, anxiety and curiosity. From there on, the story developed into the drama, hardship and joy a close-knit family experiences in the slave quarters of a large plantation. The story moved quickly and I was so engrossed I couldn't believe it when it ended. I still want to spend time with these people!

I loved The Kitchen House and wholeheartedly recommend it for book clubs - I think it would generate very lively discussions.

I know a book is going to be great when one of two things happen, either I am laughing out loud agreeing with everything, or I'm crying.
This book has done what only one other has in the past, had me crying less then ten pages in.The first paragraph of the Kitchen House is fast paced and seems to grab at your throat, hooking you and forcing you to pay attention to the lead character.

Plot: Lavinia is an Irish orphan who is brought home to a plantation, where she's given to the kitchen staff. A white girl in the middle of the 1700's working and living as if she is black. Belle, her new adoptive mother, is the daughter of the plantation owner, but banished to the servants quarters. Both find themselves struggling to live a life torn between these two worlds. As each grows into her own identity, she must face the outside world that is no bigger then the farm they are indebted to.

This story unfolds in the voices of both women, each chapter a parallel of the one before it, giving you a view from the "big house" (Lavinia) and the smaller "kitchen house" (Belle). This novel is not for the weak of spirit. There were moments where I was shocked at passages but loved the fact the author Kathleen Grissom was not afraid to explore the territory.

Rape, incest, slavery, addiction, faith, hope.

The story itself covers only a part of their lives, roughly twenty years, but weaves a tapestry that covers more. Not since Anne Rice's Feast of All Saints, have I come across a novel that dared to speak honestly about a time in history that helped to change the structure of things. There were moments when my mind was drawn to a comparison of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park in the lighter sense, of Lavinia's own improved "banishment" to a more wealthy aunt and uncle.

As I read this, I found myself asking the questions "what are we willing to do for love? How far are we willing to go? What secrets are we willing to keep? What boundaries are we willing to cross? And what would you do for your family to keep them safe?"

The novel is hauntingly beautiful in it's own spirit and gracious in it's unapologetic tone.

This novel was good from the first page to the very last. After picking it up several times at the store, i finally bought it and read it in two days. It has history, romance, and tragedy. the writing has a nice flow and the descriptions are great.

This novel is a tragic look into the often ugly past of southern USA and the social hierarchy of the slave trade. It is narrated by two women from very different backgrounds, and it successfully shows the strength of family bonds that go beyond color and status. It is brutally honest and not for the faint of heart, but I would highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in this era of our past.