Song of Redemption

Based on true events. In 1932 when the remains of a gifted songstress and house servant, Danielle, are found in a wall of an abandoned Louisiana mansion on the Soileau Plantation, it sets off a media frenzy in the French and English-speaking parish of Lafayette. Through her younger sister, Alette, who travels to identify the body, reporters learn the nature of Danielle's life on and off of the sugar plantation as a rented slave and former child companion of the master's daughter. Known for her proficiency in herbal remedies, beauty, and likeness on the Soileau & Sons' rum and sugar product art, Danielle is flawed yet favored by her lascivious master, Demetre Soileau, and despised by his wife, Etiennette.

Exposed to the society of Louisiana Creoles of color and free Blacks, regarded as the gens libre de couleur, Danielle catches the tender eye of a free mariner and business owner, Alphonse Santee, who is instrumental in her thirst for freedom, love, and her struggle to mend her broken family torn apart by turmoil and Demetre. She soon rejects the fairy-tale lifestyle that she imagined she could acquire since childhood. Captured in a love triangle, Danielle soon becomes pregnant and the devastating secrets between Etiennette and Danielle begin to unravel.

Song of Redemption is filled with the rich culture of multi-parishes west of the Mississippi River. Malika J. Stevely artfully pries opens a window to aspects of Black pre-Civil War life rarely discussed in detail and invites readers into an unforgettable journey of the past that will leave readers riveted while touching the hearts of present and future generations.