The Secrets of Mary Bowser

‘I spy with my little eye, where the bird goes when he doesn’t fly,’ Mama said one mid-day, her words floating on the Richmond heat as we carried empty cookpots through the yard to the kitchen. Mama, your little girl is all grown up, and still playing our best game. I am a spy . . . Based on the true story of Mary Bowser, this stirring and captivating novel follows a slave who is freed by her owner’s abolitionist daughter and sent North to be educated. She is blessed with a photographic memory and the passion and courage to involve herself fearlessly in the Underground Railroad movement. As the Civil War rages she returns South and winds up as a spy in the house of Jefferson Davis . . . This tale of slavery, war, love and espionage is a stunning fictional retelling of an extraordinary life.