The Yellow Wife

A Novel

By: Sadeqa Johnson

Narrated by: Robin Miles

From the New York Times bestselling author of House of Eve—a 2023 Reese’s Book Club Pick!

*A Best Book of the Year by NPR and Christian Science Monitor*

Called “wholly engrossing” by New York Times bestselling author Kathleen Grissom, this “fully immersive” (Lisa Wingate, #1 bestselling author of Before We Were Yours) story follows an enslaved woman forced to barter love and freedom while living in the most infamous slave jail in Virginia.

Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mother’s position as the estate’s medicine woman and cherished by the Master’s sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world.

She’d been promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Pheby is forced to leave the only home she has ever known. She unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil’s Half Acre, a jail in Richmond, Virginia, where the enslaved are broken, tortured, and sold every day. There, Pheby is exposed not just to her Jailer’s cruelty but also to his contradictions. To survive, Pheby will have to outwit him, and she soon faces the ultimate sacrifice.

A hard but Important Listen

A beautiful, if heartbreaking, story. This is such an important book as it goes a long way toward dispelling the Myths we have been fed about the kind-hearted slave owners of the American South. This really is historical fiction at its best. Both the author and narrator are incredibly talented.

Wow!

Wow! The Yellow Wife is quite a ride! From a privileged slave (as if that were even possible) to the mistress of the jail, the life of Phebe is equal parts love story and horror story. Johnson captures both the tenderness of a mother who fears for her children and the resolve of that same woman who does everything possible to protect them from their jailer father. At the same time, Johnson writes graphically and realistically about the punishments the slaves endured and the real outcomes (death, brain damage) of those atrocities. Where so many slave histories have been written about the plantations, the setting in the Napier Jail was different and illuminating.

I didn't realize until the writer's notes that the book was based on the real story of a slave named Mary who was married to a white jailer. Johnson's question about whether the marriage held any love or merely survival is a good one. In Rubin, the jailer character of The Yellow Wife, there is no question there could be only survival.

Johnson's writing is good and she creates a narrative that moves increasingly quickly as the story unfolds, leaving the reader in rapt anticipation of what will come next. The only reason I didn't read it within about a week is that I listened on audio and have less time to do that. Even so, it was well-read and the narrator really brought Phebe alive.

Enthralled!!!!

I have never been so captivated by a audiobook. I did not want to turn it off. The narration was perfection and the story was truly believable, I could picture the events and could almost smell the scenes.
Bravaaaa!!!!

Good Listen

This is an excellent book, if anyone thinks that slave women were considered "lovers or Concubines" to their owners this book dismisses that notion. I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to understand the horrors of slavery and what the ancestors did to survive.

Must read

This book was amazing. It gave you another perspective of slavery. It takes you on a roller coaster of emotions. A must read!