Publisher's Synopsis
Muse, a sixteen-year-old American slave, driven by a secret that nurtures her spirit but binds her to a crippling silence, is petrified when told she must travel with her owners to Europe, yet the journey sweeps her from the rocky dirt roads of a Virginia plantation to the crafted, elegant cobblestone avenues of Paris. Even though she is a captive, the subtle cultural and fashion-conscious powers of the city force open an unyielding new sense of self-determination and a vision of how life could be. In 1855, she orchestrates her escape. Living on the fringes of the city, she carves out a modest existence of independence as a seamstress until she learns a French bounty hunter is in pursuit. The fear of recapture propels her to alternative means of self-protection. When the day of reckoning arrives, and it does, she battles for her right to secure liberty. Will she kill for it . . . or die trying?
