THE KITCHEN HOUSE

A coming-of-age story set in the lush countryside of southern Virginia in the late 18th Century, THE KITCHEN HOUSE tells the riveting story of Lavinia, a seven-year-old Irish orphan, with no memory of her tragic past, transported to a tobacco plantation where she is put to work as an indentured servant.

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. Placed with the slaves in the kitchen house under the care of Belle, the master’s illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her new adopted family, even though she is forever set apart from them by her white skin. As Lavinia is slowly accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles an opium addiction, she finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When Lavinia marries the master’s troubled son and takes on the role of mistress, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare and lives are put at risk. The Kitchen House is a tragic story of page-turning suspense, exploring the meaning of family, where love and loyalty prevail..

THE KITCHEN HOUSE is Kathleen Grissom's first novel. She is currently working her on her next, CROWE MARY, about the 19th Century life of Mary Horseguard, a Crowe Native woman from Montana who married a well-known fur trader and established for herself a formidable reputation.