This book uses historical fiction and modern day fiction blended together to tell a beautiful story of two women who's lives connect through an unexpected doll's head found in the cellar of a home. It is fascinating how Sarah McCoy weaves the stories together to tell the story of a very famous event in history... the Harper's Ferry Incident... to bring us face to face with the daughter of John Brown, Sarah, and her quiet but poignant story in the history of our nation. I don't want to give too much away but if you love historical fiction as well as stories with great characters and stories that are messy and imperfect like real life then this is a great read for you. It is not all tied up in a pretty perfect package. It is real people living with hard things and they don't always make the best decisions along the way but there is healing and reconciliation and resolution in surprising ways. ( )

I knew little about the abolitionist John Brown and his family, so I appreciated the author's research into this unique family. I also felt the two stories, that of 19th-century Sarah Brown and contemporary Eden Anderson, intertwined neatly, resulting in a compelling narrative. That being said, I completed this book wanting something more. In a few scenes, I felt like the revelations were a bit of a letdown for all the buildup and explained entirely too quickly. Overall, an interesting book and likely of interest to those interested in Civil War-era historical fiction. ( )

I enjoyed the book after I had gotten through the first part with Eden, as that was difficult to take. I liked the back & forth between Sarah and Eden and finding the things in common between the times. The history was fascinating. I also enjoyed the author's explanation of the process of writing the book. ( )

When Sarah Brown, daughter of abolitionist John Brown, realizes that her artistic talents may be able to help save the lives of slaves fleeing north, she becomes one of the Underground Railroad’s leading mapmakers, taking her cues from the slave code quilts and hiding her maps within her paintings. She boldly embraces this calling after being told the shocking news that she can’t bear children, but as the country steers toward bloody civil war, Sarah faces difficult sacrifices that could put all she loves in peril.

Eden, a modern woman desperate to conceive a child with her husband, moves to an old house in the suburbs and discovers a porcelain head hidden in the root cellar—the remains of an Underground Railroad doll with an extraordinary past of secret messages, danger and deliverance. ( )

Picked this book up based on the back cover description which mentioned the quilts used for messages. In actuality, this book only mentioned those quilts in one paragraph. I did like the history side of this book. Am not a fan of the back and forth in time format. That's just me. Overall, I liked the history side of the book but was disappointed that the very reason I purchased the book was not covered in any depth. ( )