Letters from the Age of Reason by Nora Hague

I’m not sure how this book ended up in our house.  I think Stacey got it as a gift several years ago.  It’s been sitting on the To Be Read shelf for longer than I can remember (though, since it was written in 2002, that’s our earlier limit).

I picked it up a year or two ago, I think for lack of anything better to read on hand.  I’ve been picking it up on and off since then.

This is another historical fiction from the era of slavery (set just before and during the Civil War), and like The Unknown World, it’s not my typical fare.  But it’s a well written first novel, and like Jane Austen’s first novel, it is composed entirely of letters.  The book tackles the oddity of relationships between slaves, owners, and those with uncomfortably mixed ancestry.

I like to look up authors I’m unfamiliar with, but Nora Hague hasn’t got much info out there.  A few reviews of this book, no wikipedia page, and a Facebook page with the french edition of this book as the profile picture.  Her author note at the back of the book says she’s working on her second novel… it must be a long one.