There's no place like home. Especially if home is the infamous Isle of the Lost. Mal, Evie, Carlos, and Jay haven't exactly turned their villainous noses up at the comforts of Auradon after spending their childhoods banished on the Isle. After all, meeting princes and starring on the Tourney team aren't nearly as terrible as Mal and her friends once thought they would be. From the summer of 2011 until November 2018, I read 19 of the 32 books he published. November 2018 was the 10th anniversary of his death. That's when I decided to do a project dedicated to Crichton. One book per month for the next 32 months.

Annis is the daughter of a slave owner and her enslaved mother. After working in their master's home, her mother takes Annis into the trees and teaches the lessons her own mother once taught her. Annis suffers heartbreak and tremendous loss after her mother is sold and is eventfully sold herself. She and other slaves set out on a gruesome and unforgiving walk from the Carolinas to New Orleans. They will suffer greatly both mentally and physically along the way. Annis is bought and taken to a Louisiana sugar plantation where her life will change once again. HOOK - 1 stars: >>>"Starting in the early dawn light, he had driven up into the mountains...then don through lush valleys...damp in the misty morning wetness...up once more to the cold air of the peaks..."<<< opens this novel. Annis learns that her grandmother was a woman warrior married to a rich king who had many warrior wives. Every month, Annis’ mother took her to the woods and taught her to fight, to defend herself, to rise up. Mama educated Annis on the poignant saga of her family, to give her something that no slaveholder can take away—the story of her origin.Descendants: Rotten to the Core • Evil Like Me • Did I Mention • If Only • Be Our Guest • Set It Off • Believe Prior to her forced exit, Annis met another enslaved girl, Safi, and the two had become deeply bonded. For Annis, without her mother or Safi, she is caught in a blind and bleak world of the damned. The landscape of her life is often infernal, forlorn. Here we have what in some ways is a traditional slave narrative... But nothing is ever that simple with Ward. A young woman is sold by her 'sire' into the slave markets of New Orleans. As she makes the arduous walk, chained the whole way, crossing rivers and swamps, something not of this world stalks her in the woods... Despite this dip in the third act and an ending that felt slightly less satisfying than I had hoped, Annis' journey is one worth taking. As Ward herself states on the cover of my advanced copy by way of introduction, "It is difficult to walk south with Annis. Her narrative descends from one hellscape to another, but I promise that if you come with me, you will rise. It will be worth the walk, worth the walking." How did she sink? Why do none of the survivors tell the same story? And what was the cargo inside her hull? To answer these questions, McGregor will have to contend with the deadliest sharks around—both underwater and on land.

But just as important as fighting was the storytelling. When her mother told her these stories, Annis felt their narrative power. “This our secret. Mine and your’n. Can’t nobody steal this from us.” No matter what happens to her body, Annis has the stories to hold on to, fables that rise to rectitude. This is my first taste of Jesmyn Ward's writing, even though her books have been on my radar for years. I was incredibly impressed by her descriptive writing skills. The main character Annis is the daughter of a slave and her master. She and her lover Safi are sent from North Carolina to New Orleans to be sold off and the reader makes that long brutal march along with the line of slaves chained together. Once sold, the new living conditions are even worse--the slaves are starved and subjected to horrifying punishments, such as spending days in a spiked hold underground. I highly recommend this book to all who enjoy historical fiction but with the caveat that it contains a large element of magical realism. I found that fit in beautifully with the character and actions of Annis and her story of trying to exist in a world that doesn’t see her as a person at all.John Lange is a pseudonym of author Michael Crichton. His pen name was selected as reference to his above-average height of 6' 9"(2.06 meters). Lange means "tall one" in German, Danish and Dutch.