Island Beneath the Sea

Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue--the daughter of an African mother she never knew and a white sailor who brought her into bondage--ZaritE, known as TEtE, survives a childhood of brutality and fear, finding solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and in her exhilarating initiation into the mysteries of voodoo. When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, he discovers that running his father's plantation is neither glamorous nor easy. Marriage also proves problematic when, eight years later, he brings home a bride. But it is his teenaged slave, TEtE, upon whom Valmorain becomes most dependent, as their lives intertwine across four tumultuous decades.