Freedom's Banner

This Civil War family saga “bear[s] comparison to the work of Jane Aiken Hodge” and “sweeps readers along with a nice blend of drama and social history” (Publishers Weekly).

Nineteenth-century Britain: the abolitionists have won. Slavery is outlawed. A valiant victory—but it’s all too easy to forget that in the rest of the world the inhuman practice is still a part of everyday life. A thought that the usually clear-thinking Mattie Henderson chooses to suppress when she finds herself unexpectedly married and on her way to South Carolina with her new husband.

Mattie realizes too late that she is heading towards a country where a bitter civil war is about to break out—brother against brother, father against son. And the innocent, as always, will suffer with the guilty.

A generation later and the battle is still not won: the grim slave trade still flourishes. This time it is Mattie’s estranged and headstrong son Harry who, against the backdrop of the glorious Nile finds himself caught up in the murderous machinations of the slavers.

From the American Civil War to the slave trade in Egypt, Freedom’s Banner is the perfect generational saga of love, family, and redemption.

“Crane is gifted at tying political and historical strands together into an unusually gripping family saga with a sense of purpose” —Booklist