The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

Ady is not a free woman nor is her mother but she has been given a long leash that allows her to walk the streets of New Orleans where she is housed at her master's townhouse. At the Mockingbird Inn she finds a group of free women who become friends, family and partners in a spy ring to thwart the growing Confederacy. They become her only outlet from a life of pain and a respite from her master. Told in the third person as well as journal entries and imagined research documents from the future this is a story of a group of brave women who risked everything to outsmart the powerful men who held their future in their hands but not their spirit. A story of the horrors of slavery and the power of community told in authentic language. 
​4 stars