President’s Daughter

"Barbara Chase-Riboud writes with a quill of eloquence that is indeed a sword, sounding with the spirituality of Toni Morrison and the passion of Charles Dickens."
—Elaine Brown
Author of A Taste of Power
Barbara Chase-Riboud made literary history with Sally Hemings, the controversial bestseller that told the story of the woman who was Thomas Jefferson’s mistress, mother of his children, and the slave he would never set free. Now the provocative chronicle of Sally Hemings continues, in this rich, sweeping novel of Harriet Hemings, the beautiful and headstrong slave daughter of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson.
Allowed to run away from Monticello as Jefferson had promised, Harriet passes for white in the stormy era leading up to the Civil War. And then Harriet receives, from an anonymous sender, her brother Madison Hemings’ memoirs. Madison is living on the black side of the color line and Harriet realizes that someone in her circle, perhaps even her own husband, knows that she is indeed the president’s daughter.
"Chase-Riboud’s passion for history and her obsession with the contradictions of sex and race that underlay the founding of the union bring great richness to The President’s Daughter."
—San Francisco Chronicle