About THE KITCHEN HOUSE

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Excerpt
How I came to write The Kitchen House
      In 1790, Lavinia, a seven-year-old Irish orphan with no memory of her past, arrives on a tobacco plantation where she is put to work as an indentured servant with the kitchen house slaves. Though she becomes deeply bonded to her new family, Lavinia is also slowly accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. As time passes she finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds and when loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare and lives are at risk. The Kitchen House is a tragic story of page-turning suspense, exploring the meaning of family, where love and loyalty prevail.

"You will be thrilled by this intimate and surprising story that connects us with an unexpected corner of our history. Kathleen Grissom gives us a new and

unforgettable perspective on slavery and families and human ties in the Old South, exploring the deepest mysteries of the past  that help define who we are to this day."

 

 --Robert Morgan, best selling author of Gap Creek

 

"Kathleen Grissom peers into the plantation romance through the eyes of a white indentured servant

inhabiting the limbo land between slavery and freedom, providing a tale that provokes new empathy for all working and longing in The Kitchen House."

 

--Alice Randall author of The Wind Done Gone and Rebel Yell
                          
                                            

  **NATIONAL BLUE RIBBON CHOICE**

 

The Kitchen House has been selected as a National Blue Ribbon Choice for BOMC, Literary Guild, Doubleday, Doubleday Large Print, Mystery, Rhapsody, the Lifestyle Clubs, and BOMC2 for March. Blue Ribbon Choices are new authors whose novel is chosen across all clubs as an extraordinary book selection. 

 

 

 

“[Grissom’s] debut twists the conventions of the antebellum novel…provides a trove of tension and grit, while the many nefarious doings will keep readers hooked to the twisted, yet hopeful, conclusion.” – Publishers Weekly

 

“[a] pulse-quickening debut” –Kirkus Reviews

 

 Advance Praise for Kitchen House
Book Trailer
Simon & Schuster
Authors Video