Sold Down the River, Barbara Hambly
Sold Down the River, Barbara Hambly
List: $22.95 | Sale: $16.07
Club: $11.47

Sold Down the River

Author: Barbara Hambly

Narrator: Ron Butler

Unabridged: 12 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/13/2021


Synopsis

Penetrating the murkiest corners of glittering New Orleans society, Benjamin January brought murderers to justice in A Free Man of Color, Fever Season, and Graveyard Dust. Now, in Barbara Hambly’s haunting new novel, he risks his life in a violent plantation world darker than anything in the city …When slave owner Simon Fourchet asks Benjamin January to investigate sabotage, arson, and murder on his plantation, January is reluctant to do any favors for the savage man who owned him until he was seven. But he knows too well that plantation justice means that if the true culprit is not found, every slave on Mon Triomphe will suffer.Abandoning his Parisian French for the African patois of a field hand, cutting cane until his bones ache and his musician’s hands bleed, Benjamin must use all his intelligence and cunning to find the killer—or find himself sold down the river.

About Barbara Hambly

Barbara Hambly is the New York Times bestselling author of many fantasy and science fiction titles, including shared-universe novels for Star Wars and Star Trek. She makes her home in Los Angeles.

About Ron Butler

Ron Butler is a Los Angeles–based actor, Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator, and voice artist with over a hundred film and television credits. Most kids will recognize him from the three seasons he spent on Nickelodeon’s True Jackson, VP. He works regularly as a commercial and animation voice-over artist and has voiced a wide variety of audiobooks. He is a member of the Atlantic Theater Company and an Independent Filmmaker Project Award winner for his work in the HBO film Everyday People.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Renee on May 02, 2020

Beautiful writing. Wonderful main character—Benjamin January, surgeon, musician, freed slave. More of a tale of slavery than a mystery, but I’m open to trying another of Ben’s adventures.......more

Goodreads review by Emma on July 24, 2022

I found this one a bit convoluted but there was a very touching moment at the end when Ben finds out about his father.......more

Goodreads review by Rachel on September 15, 2014

Slavery shaped Benjamin January’s life; he and his sister Olympe were born slaves, before his mother was purchased as a mistress. It’s been a prominent part of the background of previous books. But it takes center stage here, when the man Ben least wants to meet again— Fourchet, his cruel previous o......more

Goodreads review by Sharon on August 01, 2016

Even though I finished it in a single day (because it was fascinating on many levels), the premise of this book bugged the hell out of me. In this title, free man of color Benjamin January is guilted by his mother into going undercover as a field slave on his former master's plantation in order to f......more

Goodreads review by Rebecca on April 19, 2011

Out of all of the series so far, this one has to be one of the strongest and darkest of them. Benjamin January has to confront his own past when his former owner, Simon Fourchet, comes to him asking for a favour. Benjamin, naturally, wants nothing to do with him, but the temptation of five hundred d......more


Quotes

“A masterly piece of historical storytelling.” New York Times Book Review

“The novel’s plot is filled with brilliant twists and Hambly writes with inspired magic.” Greensboro News & Record (North Carolina)

“Searing.” Kirkus Reviews

“Hambly effectively combines three genres—mystery, historical fiction, mainstream melodrama—in this disturbing but quite moving story.” Booklist

“The darkest time in American history comes alive in Hambly’s unforgettable series…. [A] fiercely burning picture of the horrors of slavery … astonishing.” Publishers Weekly