Edmantha Hall’s Destiny follows two young enslaved people, Mary and Cyris, whose hopes for freedom take shape in a world built to deny them control over their lives. Opening in New Orleans in 1853, the novel combines historical drama, revenge, and survival adventure. Mary’s fair skin allows her to pass as white, giving her glimpses of the respect and opportunity she longs to claim. Cyris begins with a much narrower understanding of the world beyond the plantation. Their friendship connects these different perspectives, and the story draws its energy from what each learns about freedom, trust, and power.

Mary is the book’s most unsettling character, and that’s a large part of what makes her interesting. She’s generous, proud, resourceful, and capable of frightening cruelty. Her love of fine clothes, theaters, and elegant homes gives her ambitions a concrete shape: she wants comfort, recognition, and the right to choose her own future. Hall also shows how deeply racial hierarchies influence Mary’s view of herself and other people. Her wish to escape oppression becomes tangled with her desire for social status. Cyris brings a different emotional register, with his curiosity and eagerness to learn. Together, they give the novel room to explore the complicated ways people respond to humiliation and danger.

Some of the strongest material concerns ordinary things that become precious under slavery: reading, counting money, knowing a parent’s name, or entering a building through its front door. Hall makes these details matter. Literacy provides practical power, while clothing and speech can affect how strangers treat someone within seconds. The yellow fever epidemic adds another layer of fear, filling the setting with sickness, uncertainty, and strained human relationships. The descriptions are often graphic, particularly when the book addresses sexual violence and physical punishment. That intensity establishes the characters’ daily vulnerability, although the repeated scenes of brutality can become exhausting and make individual episodes feel less distinct.

This book reminded me of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. Both books follow young people seeking freedom through a landscape where kindness can be risky to trust and safety is fragile. Whitehead gives the historical escape network a physical form, with actual underground trains and tunnels. Hall builds her story through personal encounters, practical survival problems, and an ominous interest in fate. Her narrative has the rhythm of an adventure, moving through episodes that repeatedly test a character’s judgment. The comparison highlights a shared concern: freedom involves learning how to navigate a society that continues to place obstacles in your path.

Hall’s prose is direct, and conversations carry much of the story. That makes the book easy to follow, especially when characters discuss their hopes or exchange information they’ve been denied. The writing also frequently names emotions outright, and similar threats and betrayals recur, giving some passages a predictable rhythm. I wanted more space for certain relationships to develop and for the characters’ contradictions to emerge through quieter moments. Even so, Destiny has a clear emotional pull in its attention to education, family separation, and the struggle to make decisions for yourself. It’s a harsh, eventful read whose most compelling question is what pursuing freedom does to a person’s sense of who they are.

Pages: 268 | ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07FC7XPYH