Supplier: Quill Tree Books

Winner of the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award!

"Monumental." —Booklist (starred review)

"A marathon masterpiece."—Kirkus (starred review)

"Necessary."—SLJ (starred review)

"Shocking and dramatic."—Shelf Awareness (starred review)

"Mesmerizing, confounding and vividly rendered."—Book Page (starred review)

"Williams-Garcia’s storytelling is magnificent; her voice honest and authentic."—Horn Book (starred review)

1860, Louisiana. After serving as mistress of Le Petit Cottage for more than six decades, Madame Sylvie Guilbert has decided, in spite of her family’s objections, to sit for a portrait.

While Madame plots her last hurrah, stories that span generations—from the big house to out in the fields—of routine horrors, secrets buried as deep as the family fortune, and the tangled bonds of descendants and enslaved, come to light to reveal a true portrait of the Guilberts.