THE HOUSE GIRL by Tara Conklin

Josephine Bell is a Virginia house slave who is determined to escape.  She tried once before, but her very advanced pregnancy forced her to return to her master’s home.   What happened to her child becomes the subject of another story, as 21^st century attorney Lina Sparrow is searching for Josephine’s descendants.  Lina has been tasked with finding a plaintiff for a slavery reparations lawsuit that her firm is pursuing, and she has discovered that Josephine probably produced artwork that has long been attributed to her mistress.  Lina also begins to realize that perhaps her father is withholding information about Lina’s mother, who supposedly died in a car accident when Lina was a toddler.  The narrative alternates between Lina’s story and Josephine’s story, and I felt that the author crammed too many jagged side plots into this novel and that she should have focused a little more on the characters.  I suppose that the art angle is what ties Lina to Josephine in the first place, as Lina’s father is also an artist.  Josephine certainly deserves posthumous reparations, not only for having been enslaved and abused but also for not having received credit for her paintings.  However, there seems to be a lot of drama in Lina’s life as well, not only related to her mother’s fate, but also related to her career and work relationships.  I was particularly curious as to why the author threw in the intrigue about Lina’s mother, unless there was supposed to be some parallel between Lina’s mother and Josephine, neither of whom was able to be a part of her child’s upbringing.  I enjoyed reading this book, despite finding the characters to be a little flat and the plot a little too busy.