Book Review: The Underground Railroad

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Cora is a slave on a plantation in Georgia.  The life of a slave is difficult, but life has thrown her some unexpected complications over the years.  Her mother ran away - and was never seen again - when she was 10 years old.  Cora was left to fend for herself in a hostile environment, where even the strong don't last long.

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Cora finally reaches her breaking point and escapes with her friend Caesar, hoping that she is a good luck token that will help them escape like her mother did. Unfortunately, as they are making their first break for freedom, they are confronted by a gang of bounty hunters, and in the ensuing struggle, Cora kills a young boy.  Knowing that death - and an ugly death at that - will be her ultimate punishment, Cora becomes desperate to escape to freedom.

Forget what you have learned about the Underground Railroad.  In Cora's story, this is an actual railroad, on tracks, that exists in tunnels bored throughout the south. 

As Cora and Caesar search for the peace that has been denied to them, they find themselves wrapped up into places and situations where the chains that bind them are not the visible ones they had on them in Georgia, but they are every bit as real and deadly.  With the specter of the murdered white boy behind them, the fugitives struggle to settle in to new identities with the hope that they will not be recognized.

Unfortunately, they are pursued by the most determined of bounty hunters - the same man who was assigned to find Cora's mother.   Haunted by this one failure, he is determined to track down the fugitives and return them to their plantation.

Join Cora in her desperate race to Freedom as they journey through several stops along the Underground Railroad and find perils both unexpected and unseen.



The Underground Railroad is Historical Fiction at its very best - well researched and thought provoking.  This haunting tale will reel you in within the first 50 pages, and keep you reading until the very last word.