A mercy / Morrison, Toni

When a small African girl named Florens is taken on as a slave by an Anglo-Dutch trader, she looks for love in the hearts of the individuals she meets and attempts to overcome thoughts of her mother, who cast off Florens in an attempt to save her life.

In 1680s Virginia, sixteen-year-old Florens, a slave of Jacob Vaark who was given to the couple eight years earlier and who believes her mother gave her to them so she would not lose her infant son, struggles with issues of abandonment while trying to cope with the uncertainty of colonial life and the people with whom she lives.

Florens, a sixteen-year-old slave on a Virginia plantation is given to a Dutch trader named Jacob Vaark as payment for a debt owed to Vaark by her master, and moves to his small Northern farm where her presence is felt keenly by Vaark's childless wife Rebekka, Native American servant Lina, and Sorrow, a foundling.

Florens, a sixteen-year-old slave on a Virginia plantation is given to a Dutch trader named Jacob Vaark as payment for a debt owed to Vaark by her master, and moves to his small Northern farm where her presence is felt keenly by Vaark's childless wife Rebekka, Native American servant Lina, and Sorrow, a foundling.