Ashes

by Laurie Halse Anderson Book 3 in the Seeds of America series.

First published 2016

Amazon

4.4(8,583)

Virginia, 1781. Isabel and Curzon have escaped Valley Forge but remain fugitives, pursued by Bellingham and separated from Ruth. Their search carries them through a southern landscape where military movements, plantations, bounty hunters and the movement of self-emancipated people make every road dangerous. Finding Ruth does not immediately restore the family Isabel remembers, and Curzon’s commitment to the Patriot army creates new conflict between them.

Their path converges with the allied American and French forces gathering at Williamsburg and Yorktown. George Washington’s army closes on the British position while the besieged force of Charles Cornwallis approaches surrender. The military victory does not resolve the treatment of Black refugees or the legal power of enslavers, and the trilogy ends by measuring national independence against the characters’ unfinished struggle to define and secure freedom.