London: Chatto & Windus, (2008) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - True first edition (preceding the US edition by a couple of weeks) of this novel set in colonial America in the 1680s in the early days of slavery in North America. The characters - European, Native American, and African all share the sense of uprootedness. They are joined together on the plantation of Jacob Vaark, a trader and a reluctant slaveholder. The novel focuses on the women on the plantation: Vaarks wife Rebekka haunted by the death of her children, an Indian small pox survivor named Lina, a mysterious survivor of a shipwreck named Sorrow, and an African slave Florens who was given to Vaark by her mother to repay her mothers masters debt. The final voice is that of Floren's mother describing how she gave up her daughter to protect her. SIGNED on the title page. Although shorter than many of her novels, this is one of her most powerful. 165 pp. ISBN: 978-0701180454.