One of the most profound books I have ever read; HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!! This story is about a slave named Iona; She grows up motherless but has people who raise her well; A man she looks up to; the cook who teaches her to cook, and Joe, an African, who she falls in love with but tragedy prevails; despite the fact that she is a slave, she writes a book that is partly prophetic and partly a story; the book somehow got passed down within Joe’s family somehow, but loses it and it ends up with a store owner who one day opens her shop to two people who rush for the same book….what happens after that well, READ THE BOOK!!