{"product_id":"9780307270443","title":"A Mercy","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNational Bestseller\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne of\u003ci\u003e The New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e 10 Best Books of the Year\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the  1680s the slave trade in the Americas is still in its infancy. Jacob Vaark is an  Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh North. Despite  his distaste for dealing in “flesh,” he takes a small slave girl in part payment  for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, who  can read and write and might be useful on his farm. Rejected by her mother, Florens  looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house,  and later from the handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved, who comes riding  into their lives.\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Mercy\u003c\/i\u003e reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But  at its heart, like \u003ci\u003eBeloved\u003c\/i\u003e, it is the ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother and  a daughter—a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter  who may never exorcise that abandonment.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eFrom the Trade Paperback edition.\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47069194453232,"sku":"9780307270443","price":4.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780307270443_p0.jpg?v=1763671533","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780307270443","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}