All We Were Promised

Three young Black women in 1837 Philadelphia—one enslaved, one free, and one a runaway—find friendship and danger in Lattimore’s richly layered debut. Having fled from the White Oaks plantation in Maryland, Charlotte and her father, James, build new lives in the city. James, who passes as white, becomes a successful furniture maker, while Charlotte shrinks under the guise of being his housemaid. Nell Garner, a young Black woman who visits their house, introduces Charlotte to Philadelphia’s Black society and enlists her in aiding the abolitionist movement. Charlotte maintains her cover story with Nell and other abolitionists for everyone’s safety, but danger ensues with the arrival of Evie, another Black woman enslaved at White Oaks, who’s visiting Philadelphia with Charlotte and James’s owner. After a chance meeting at the local market, Evie and Charlotte rekindle their friendship, and Evie decides to risk running away with the help of Charlotte and Nell. Lattimore effectively develops all three of the central characters’ emotions and perspectives as they reconcile what freedom means to them, and she provides a textured view of such historical events as the building of Pennsylvania Hall as a meeting place for the antislavery movement and its subsequent burning by an angry antiabolitionist mob. Lattimore is a writer to watch. Agent: Jaime Carr, Book Group. (Apr.)