All We Were Promised

November 1, 2023

Lattimore, award-winning journalist and editor in chief at Prism, a nonprofit news outlet by and for communities of color, makes her debut with this story of three young Black women--a formerly enslaved housemaid, an abolitionist socialite, and a currently enslaved woman--whose lives collide in 1837 Philadelphia. Prepub Alert.

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Starred review from February 15, 2024
Charlotte escaped slavery and settled in 1837 Philadelphia, posing as her white-passing father's maid. Nell, a young woman whose freeborn family enjoys wealth and status in the Black community, takes Charlotte under her wing to introduce her to an abolitionist group but has no idea how well Charlotte understands the realities of slavery. When Charlotte comes face-to-face with Evie, the best friend she had to abandon when she left the plantation, she feels a mixture of guilt and fear. Now that she's in a free state, Evie wants the freedom she thinks Charlotte has. Nell is eager to take on a more active role in the abolitionist movement, but engineering Evie's escape could end up being much more than any of them bargained for. Lattimore's debut is a thoroughly researched gem with a strong sense of place anchored around the construction of Pennsylvania Hall. There is palpable tension throughout as each character puts up emotional barriers for protection, failing to recognize that others are doing the same and filling in the blanks with their own assumptions. Through the perspectives of these three women, the vast difference between safety and freedom is clearly portrayed, as is the determined tenacity of female friendship.

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April 1, 2024
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.

June 1, 2024
The lives of three Black women--one free, one enslaved, one in between--are entwined in Philadelphia in 1837. Nell lives a life of relative privilege as the daughter of a prosperous, socially elite Black family that's been free for generations. As she enters adulthood, she wants to give back, and so she throws herself into working with an abolitionist organization. Philadelphia, her home, is an ostensibly free city, but all around her she sees signs of racism and proslavery rhetoric that sometimes explode into violence. Evie is an enslaved teenager, brought from her home on a Maryland plantation to Philadelphia by her owner, a self-absorbed young widow, Kate, who has already sold off Evie's mother and brother, leaving the girl brokenhearted. Linking Evie and Nell is another young woman. Nell knows her as Charlotte, a free Black domestic worker with a quick mind and ambitions, whom she befriends as an abolitionist ally. Evie has known her, much longer, as Carrie. They were enslaved on the same Maryland plantation until a few years before, when Carrie's father, Jack, escaped with his daughter. In Philadelphia, Jack calls himself James--light-skinned enough to pass for white, he has established a successful woodworking business. But to maintain his disguise, his dark-skinned daughter must pose as his housekeeper, always hiding her past and calling herself Charlotte. Each woman wants to rise above her current life, but Evie's need is most urgent--Kate is about to remarry and move to South Carolina, legendary for exceptionally brutal treatment of the enslaved. As Nell and Charlotte resolve to help Evie escape, Lattimore shows us the complex, deeply restrictive social structure that they must overcome to take action. The first part of the book moves slowly, but the pace picks up in the latter half as the escape plan for Evie takes shape. Although the book's history lessons sometimes interrupt its narrative, the well-rounded main characters keep the reader engaged. This rich historical novel widens the scope on the variety of Black American experiences.

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