This book had all things near and dear to me - historical fiction, pre-Civil War, Philadelphia, Camden, Under Ground Railroad, Lucretia Mott. I'm afraid I was disappointed in this read. I felt the author, though well-researched, was overly zealous in taking on too any issues since he didn't do justice to any particular one. Each character had their own specific issues and it often became muddied for the reader.

I read other books about the Underground Railroad and I think this is a good one as it's well plotted and flows.
The MC, Rina, is a well developed, clever, and strong character and I liked her.
The storytelling is excellent, the historical background well researched and vivid.
An excellent read.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I found this a struggle to read and couldn’t get though it. DNR so can’t give full feedback. Interesting concert but it did not work for me

have a modest knowledge about the Underground Railroad, the network of anti-slavery citizens that helped smuggle escaped slaves from the slaveholding states in the South towards the Northeast and the Midwest, to freedom, but I can't say I know any names besides Harriet Tubman and John Brown, the big names even non-Americans like me can recognise. So to read this novel based on a true story was enlightening to me, I learnt a new name, Rian Krieger, whose story is extraordinary because she wasn't just an average person that didn't get monuments and accolades but was also a woman.

Well, a child, actually. She was only eleven when she got involved with the Underground Railroad by helping a runaway slave woman. Yes, indeed, only eleven years old! I mean, who at that age gets themselves into such a tremendously important endeavour as fighting slavery? At that age, us normal mortal girls were playing with toys and worrying about our pretty clothes and our friends and school. And so was little Rian, at first glance, until her personality, her awareness of her surroundings, and her principles motivated her to channel her "tomboyish" and fearless energy into assisting the Underground network working in mid-1830s Pennsylvania, approximately two decades before the Civil War.

This spirited child was the daughter of a German immigrant, Otto Krieger, who despairs at how "wild" his girl is and would love nothing better than have her be a proper little miss. The girl is far from obliging, though, and gets into trouble after trouble, from punching boys in the face for insulting her to discovering her father's foreman is an escaped slave. It doesn't take her long to meet the Irish side of her family, and a slave catcher bent on recovering runaway slaves that she must outwit to protect those she loves.

I enjoyed this novel for the historical context and the newness of the plotline, and I liked Rian's spirit. However, I also found it was very rough and in need of editing as well as proofreading. The proofreading is probably going to be taken care of, if it hasn't already, before publication as my copy is an ARC; but the editorial corrections would need further work. There are passages that are repetitive and read awkwardly, and a professional editor would be able to point out and fix those, beta-readers don't always compensate for the expertise of an editor, and it shows in this book that the beta-readers and critique partners' slipped a few times. The passages needing editing are distracting, and whilst I was able to read on without it bothering me too much, other readers might not be as forgiving.

Another thing I would suggest be changed is the phrases in German interspersed through Otto's POV. Some of them are unnecessary, as they are simple phrases or words that Otto, having been in the US for so long, wouldn't be using all the time as if he couldn't say the same in English. It's not good writing to have foreign characters always spouting very simple words in their native tongue, because bilingual and polyglot people don't do that in reality. I am one, my entire family is, and we don't resort to saying simple things like "yes" or "what is that?" in our native tongue when in a foreign language context. We talk in our native tongue in a foreign language context only when we don't know a word or phrase (and then it's heavily helped by gesticulating to make ourselves understood) or when we slip. Monolingual authors use this trope all the time believing it'll make their character more "authentic," but it doesn't. Besides, when Otto is speaking in German, there shouldn't be a repetition of the same in English, much less in brackets! Leave them untranslated, and if you want, put them in a glossary by the end, but don't translate right away in the same sentence.

There are four POVs in this book: Rian, her cousin Seamus, Otto, and Otto's ex-slave foreman Jules, and I think it was a clever way to show the entirety of the situation in Philadelphia that the Underground had to deal with, although I'd personally have chosen a single Third Person omniscient POV to narrate everything because in this author's style it works better. Also, three of the POVs' "voices" tend to blend together after a while, and only Seamus' POV stands out as distinct. Perhaps it's because he has his own way of speaking, well peppered with "Irishisms," that set him apart. I find him the better written of the characters, personally, and hopefully he has a larger role in the next book.