Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen

Historical fiction is a wonderful tool in the right hands; it can bring the past vividly alive.  That's what Sarah Bird has done with her novel Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen (#822).  Cathy Williams, the central character in this book, was a real person.  She was a black woman who served for two years with the famed Buffalo Soldiers in the West.  Her secret didn't come out until after she had served.  Not much else is known about her, but in Ms. Bird's story, it's easy to imagine how it could have been to go from slavery in the antebellum South to being contraband following General Philip Sheridan's forces, and at the end of the war, deciding not to go back to a South where the attitudes about slaves hadn't changed even though the Yankees had won the war.  When the promise of a new life out West was raised at the end of the war, Cathy was determined to take it, but the only way to do it safely was to pass as a man.

It was never an easy life, but Cathy Williams throughout it all remained true to herself; as the daughter of a daughter of a queen captured in Africa and brought to America.  Through this book, her story won't be forgotten; it deserves to be told.