ORIGINAL SINS
A Novel of Slavery and Freedom

A young woman's audacious journey into the slave-holding South

Why would a runaway Virginia slave—having built a rewarding life in the East Indies as a silk merchant—risk her own freedom and that of her two sons by returning to America in 1840, eighteen years after taking her freedom? Anibaddh Lyngdoh claims that she intends to introduce a new kind of silk to the floundering American silk industry.

But her old friend, Grace MacDonald Pollocke, soon discovers that the true reason is far more personal: Anibaddh is seeking someone she had left behind, years before.

Critical Praise for Original Sins

ORIGINAL SINS is a time machine into an authentic, believable Quaker Philadelphia and antebellum slaveholding Virginia. It is an engaging, gentle-hearted, often surprising cliff-hanger, and Ms. Kingman's transparent prose recalls Robert Louis Stevenson.
-  Donald McCaig, author of JACOB'S LADDER

". . . filled with intriguing details about life in 1840s Pennsylvania and Virginia, cultivating silk worms, and the daguerreotype process. . . richly crafted"
- Library Journal

". . . richly detailed. . . Ambitious. . . a novel that demands the reader's participation, and that repays it well."
- Kirkus Reviews

"Kingman weaves budding technological developments, challenges to nineteenth-century social mores, and powerfully argued ideas on freedom and independence into this engaging novel."
- Booklist

"This novel urges deep thinking, with a complex plot that tidies up quite neatly at the end.  Inspired characters and a lush landscape make it easy to get caught up in this story."
- Sacramento Book Review

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