And take a break to look at this beautiful cover. I felt breathless, excited and shaken at the same time. When I started this book and captivated by those lyrical, emotional, poetic, amazing words created its own magic, I thought I was falling in love with this book (I loved it so much so as a treat I shared my wine with it! Yes, I’m clumsy and poured it on my kindle, but my intentions were sincere as always) Most of the first parts, I felt the words waltzing on my mind like a fresh breeze rejuvenating my soul. (That’s my shawshanking glory run, my dear friends) Then I started to run away, dropping down my phone as if someone gave me a daily chore to clean up the entire house and I’m escaping from secret big hole at my wall hid behind Rita Hayworth poster. I’m giving those stars in shame, hands shaking as I push them to the key board and clicked: 3 shiny stars. Written by one of today’s most exciting thinkers and writers, The Water Dancer is a propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen. This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children-the violent and capricious separation of families-and the war they waged to simply make lives with the people they loved. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hiram’s resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her-but was gifted with a mysterious power.

Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here and here.

The water dancer goodreads