Powerful, moving and redemptive, RIVER SING ME HOME tells of a mother's desperate search to find her stolen children and her freedom.

'A strong and beautiful novel that stares into the face of brutality and the heart of love' JEANETTE WINTERSON

'Every once in a while, a book comes along that is so assured and so powerful you can't believe it's a debut novel. River Sing Me Home is just such a book. I was thrust into Rachel's desperate, dangerous life... and I followed her journey with my heart in my mouth. Eleanor Shearer is a remarkable writer and she brings this story of a mother's courage to the page with compassion, tenderness and pitch-perfect prose' NATASHA LESTER

We whisper the names of the ones we love like the words of a song. That was the taste of freedom to us, those names on our lips.

Mary Grace, Micah, Thomas Augustus, Cherry Jane and Mercy.

These are the names of her children. The five who survived, only to be sold to other plantations. The faces Rachel cannot forget.

It's 1834, and the law says her people are now free. But for Rachel freedom means finding her children, even if the truth is more than she can bear.

With fear snapping at her heels, Rachel keeps moving. From sunrise to sunset, through the cane fields of Barbados to the forests of British Guiana and on to Trinidad, to the dangerous river and the open sea.

Only once she knows their stories can she rest.

Only then can she finally find home.