The book is titled The Slave Players, and takes place in modern day rural Alabama, perhaps a year or two in the future. Racial unrest is sweeping the nation, church bombings and campus rioting have become commonplace, and outbreaks of violence reach epidemic proportions. An advisor to the president thinks that one major incident could set off the sparks leading to an explosion such as America has … has never before seen. THE INCIDENT: A church bus makes a wrong turn deep in the Alabama countryside, and a dozen black teenage girls become victims of a heinous crime. A coverup ensues, reaching all the way to the governor, who concludes that if the truth were known the resulting uprising could plunge the state into anarchy. Eventually, the truth does leak out, and there is little that can be done to abate the bloodbath that slams into Alabama from all sides. Enter a disgruntled colonel who has been denied promotion for what he calls ?racial impairment.’ Behind him is a flock of equally disgruntled young soldiers who believe the colonel to be their oracle, and they his disciples. This is a situation and an incident for which he has waited much of his professional life. They take over a small county in the southernmost section of the state. His plan is to return the south, or his little portion of it, to the glory days before the Civil War, but this time with blacks as slave masters, and enslaved whites forced into servitude. He knows his time frame is limited, but intends to martyr himself for what he deems to be a greater good. It’s a game he wants to play, with rules as close to historically accurate as possible, and demonstrating what persecution and tyranny do to the human spirit.
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I initially put off reading this book because of the flyer that came with it as a warning, saying the KKK posted a youtube video lashing out at the author for the material it contained. I won’t watch the video until after this review because I didn’t want a biased opinion of the book. I was expecting the story to be very graphic and violent, needing to prepare myself for this read. It was quite the opposite actually!
In my opinion, this story was written with extremely good taste. Some of the more shocking events were implied and not in horrific detail, which as someone who is very sensitive, I’m very thankful, I had no problem reading a few chapters and going to sleep after.
I loved this book! It was seriously action-packed from the very first page, so much, in fact, there were NO lulls for me. It was fast paced, with tons of twists I was never expecting. I loved the style of how this book was written because it could have been written in gruesome detail, it was done as beautifully as a work of art. I loved the psychological aspects and getting to see inside the minds of the characters created and not just one perspective on them. The characters were loveable, vivid, and delightful. The ending was bold and powerful. There is a lot of bias about this book and the location of the setting, probably because it hits so close to home, the author’s lesson is hate and it just goes to show it still runs wild and deep in the people of all walks of life today. Hate is learned and it is inherited, and this story captures the essence of it in all its glory.
I want to thank the author, publisher, and the Goodreads Giveaway Program for this free print copy I won, in exchange for an honest review!
The Slave Players shocked me to the core, exposing the prejudice and injustice I have never encountered in my life, yet it is there. This is a fast-paced thriller of a book as well, and yet carries you away with it’s poetic descriptions. Megan Allen has a unique voice for her POV characters, each of which shows you a heinous crime of hatred and pathos from very different points of view. I have to admit I found this book very disturbing, but I have to leave my lavender farm sometime and realize all is not beauty on this earth. (Why not?)
Rebecca Rosenberg
THE SECRET LIFE OF MRS. LONDON
GOLD DIGGER, the remarkable Baby Doe Tabor
Thank You Good Reads and Burn house Publishing for a copy of Slave Players by Megan Allen.
It’s modern day in the Deep South. Racial unrest is rampant, and outbreaks of violence reach epidemic proportions. When a church bus makes a wrong turn in the Alabama countryside, a dozen teenage girls become victims of a heinous crime. The resulting outcry is explosive, as a new civil war erupts, but this time it will be whites who are cast into bondage. And Slave Playing becomes a cruel game of tyranny and survival.
After I finished this book, I sat in awe. Tried starting another book and still this book ran through my mind. I have so many words and don’t feel many sentences. This book left me speechless for a few hours and even when I tried to explain it to others I just couldn’t. With this review I’ll try and go on.
First of all this book is about Alabama in the 60’s when racial tensions were very high. Coroner Shawn Briggs and his daughter Olivia (by the way I loved this little girl). Shawn finds out a bus accident is not a bus accident when he examines the bodies. He goes to the sheriff and others only to be told to keep his mouth shut. Shawn was determined to tell someone who would listen even though it could interrupt in pure civil war and it did. Alabama ends up being a power keg with people being killed just for walking down the street. Whites flee Alabama as fast as they can. Time to bring in the President.
I have to say I was appalled at the language which I’m sure was needed here for the story. Easy to skip over. You get the jest. I love the relationship between Shawn and his daughter Olivia, they are so witty and even though this is a serious book, I couldn’t help but snicker out loud of the conversations between the two of them.
Thanks again for this intense read.
The story starts out with 14 black people in a bus heading to a bible camp. The driver gets lost and ends up in the backwoods in the deep south, Alabama. The next day the bus is found, everyone on it is dead, except 1 girl is missing. A rogue black colonel decides to get revenge by enslaving white people in the town where the incident took place. While this had the chance to be a great book, I think it fell a little short. The ending wasn’t what I would have liked to see happen. And the overall feel of it wasn’t something I liked. It had some really good parts, but the bad parts seemed to outweigh them.
I loved the characters in this book. I almost put it down after the first chapter because it took me to a place I didn’t want to go. By that time I was already invested and had to know what happened next.