A breathtaking journey marrying a slave girl's escape in the 1800s with a young lawyer's present-day discoveries. A hidden room, a box of photographs, a hunt through Boston's streets and alleyways... Rooster Street is a story on multiple levels of discrimination, abandonment and violence; fortitude, love, and final celebration.
When Jennifer Pryor's grandmother dies, leaving a box full of history specifically addressed to Jen, she is baffled when tying up the estate of the Brooks . At the same time Jen, whose law firm is tying up the Brooks estate, an historic home on Cape Cod, finds another carefully, also filled with memorabilia and photographs... including an identical one in both boxes. The mystery deepens with the discovery of a hidden room, and a carved trunk Along with Noah, the town's historian, Jen goes on a hunt in Boston for the mysterious Rooster Street.
Her tale is cleverly interwoven with that of Althea Kieron, in the mid-1850s. Born on a plantation in South Carolina, of a white master and his black slave, Althea is beautiful, intelligent, and has a clear destiny to fulfill. In love with the new master's son Jonathan, the two make a daring escape plan for her on the Underground Railroad. Terrified but with utter faith in her Jonny, she follows instructions, being passed from one stop to another, always in danger, with a terrible climax. Her future turns out completely differently than they had planned, but her courage brings her to play a role in the education of future generations of children of all colors.
As long-hidden secrets are brought to light, with severe shocks along the way, Althea's life story and Jenny Pryor's 150 years later form a rich tapestry, while slowly all the puzzle pieces linking the present to the past fall into place. Jennifer's search for answers lead her to the discovery of her mother, her family, and her own roots - as well as to an unexpected love of her own.
