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    Mustard Seed
    Mustard Seed
    Mustard Seed
    Audiobook9 hours

    Mustard Seed

    Written by Laila Ibrahim

    Narrated by Bahni Turpin

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The bestselling author of Yellow Crocus returns with a haunting and tender story of three women returning to the plantation they once called home.

    Oberlin, Ohio, 1868. Lisbeth Johnson was born into privilege in the antebellum South. Jordan Freedman was born a slave to Mattie, Lisbeth’s beloved nurse. The women have an unlikely bond deeper than friendship. Three years after the Civil War, Lisbeth and Mattie are tending their homes and families while Jordan, an aspiring suffragette, teaches at an integrated school.

    When Lisbeth discovers that her father is dying, she’s summoned back to the Virginia plantation where she grew up. There she must face the Confederate family she betrayed by marrying an abolitionist. Jordan and Mattie return to Fair Oaks, too, to save the family they left behind, who still toil in oppression. For Lisbeth, it’s a time for reconciliation. For Jordan and Mattie, it’s time for liberation.

    As the Johnsons and Freedmans confront the injustice that binds them, as well as the bitterness and violence that seethes at its heart, the women must find the courage to free their families—and themselves—from the past.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateNov 7, 2017
    ISBN9781543622478
    Mustard Seed
    Author

    Laila Ibrahim

    Laila Ibrahim spent much of her career as a preschool director, a birth doula, and a religious educator. That work, coupled with her education in developmental psychology and attachment theory, provided ample fodder for the story lines of her bestselling novels: Paper Wife, Mustard Seed, and Yellow Crocus. She’s a devout Unitarian Universalist, determined to do her part to add a little more love and justice to our beautiful and painful world. She lives with her wonderful wife, Rinda, and two other families in a small cohousing community in Berkeley, California. Her young adult children are her pride and joy. Laila is blessed to be working full-time as a novelist. When she isn’t writing, she likes to take walks with friends, do jigsaw puzzles, play games, work in the garden, travel, cook, and eat all kinds of delicious food. Visit the author at www.lailaibrahim.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lailaibrahim.author.

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    Reviews for Mustard Seed

    4.5/5

    512 ratings30 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Very well written story. Read very well too. The only problem I had was that i didn`t always knowing when it was the child or adult daughter telling that part. I am working when it`s being read, so that may be part of it, but I usually don`t have this problem.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Three stars is quite high for me, I thought it was more than ok I really enjoyed this follow on book and would definitely recommend and the narration was wonderful ??

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Ms. Turbin's reading of this delightful tell was impeccable. Thank you to the author and narrator!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I loved the continuation of the story of two women who both showed great courage in difficult times. Thank you.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this book as well as the previous one! Characters were real! Situations about race and intolerance were dealt with fairly. Resolutions were not gift wrapped with a tidy bow, but were encouragingly directed toward hope. We choose our responses and these characters made choices that changed the lives of their own families as well as generations to follow and as well - strangers. Worth the read and the narrator did a marvelous job! WELL DONE ALL!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I loved the easy style of this author and how impacting the story was. Loved it!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Absolutely amazing!! The narrator did a wonderful job as well
    • 5/5
      A brilliant follow-up to The Yellow Crocus, happy to find it and eager to read the next book too.
    • 5/5
      This book was very good. It contains historical issues that I had never thought about. Must read! I couldn't put it down. The narrator is amazing and the author very talented.
    • 4/5
      This was an Excellent book which was difficult to put down
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this book. I am a truck driver and listen to audiobooks while driving. This is the first book I listened to while at home because I couldn’t wait until I got back in the truck!!!
    • 5/5
      Wonderful story about the trials and tribulations during the Civil War. It is very well written, and helps the reader to feel the emotion that tour families apart during that time.
    • 5/5
      A wonderful book ,I would recommend. Will definitely read again.
    • 5/5
      MAGNIFICENT! Loved this sequel! My new favorite story teller. Following this author anywhere.
    • 5/5
      The story is very beautiful. To appreciate it fully, you need to read Yellow Crocus. Wonderful narration. Must read!
    • 5/5
      I think this sequel to Yellow Crocus (which I also loved) may have been even better! I love the characters. The topic of slavery is hard, but this book puts you right there, and does an amazing job of telling the difficulties as well as the relationships between owners and slaves. Definitely recommend.
    • 5/5
      An amazing sequel to the amazing Yellow Crocus. Reading these books in 2020, it is shocking to realise so little has changed, behind the veneer of society. Please read these books. They give context to history, when looking at twentyfirst century troubles.
    • 4/5
      I loved (most of) this book. It was great until the ending, which was soooooooo loooooong. In fact, the last 3 chapters could have been edited down to one. I eye-rolled right up until the end, which is too bad because the first 85% was was so well written.
    • 5/5
      This book was the much needed continuation to Yellow Crocus. I enjoyed seeing the characters develop further.
    • 5/5
      Wow amazing history so well done can’t wait to read more of this author
    • 4/5
      Spell binding. Love the resilience of the characters though would love move one to rescue family one does not even know who they are looking for. Like finding a human needle in a hay stack. Hmmmm
    • 2/5
      Reads like a long long teaching moment. Often repetitive . Overuse of the verb acquiesced which furthered the teaching moment feeling. Since all of the characters were so overly much defined by their intended leading characteristics they didn’t at all seem real, which made it impossible to feel with or for them.
    • 5/5
      This was a good read, enjoy it. Would recommend to others
    • 4/5
      This is a sequel to Yellow Crocus, but it can be read as a stand alone. The year is 1868. Lizbeth Wainright Johnson receives word in Ohio that her father is dying in Virginia and she needs to return to the south. Lizbeth is estranged from her family because they supported different sides during the war.Meanwhile Mattie, a former slave, and who was once Lizbeth's nurse also living nearby in Ohio convinces her family they need to go to Virginia to rescue a cousin, Sarah who is still working on a plantation.Virginia is slow to adapt to the slaves being free and some like Sarah, believe they have no place to go, and fear being unable to take of herself.Once in Virginia, Lizbeth and Mattie and her family are compelled to join forces, against Lizbeth's family and to rescue Sarah.There are several interesting twists and turns to this story.
    • 4/5
      A history lesson laced with morality lessons wrapped up in fictional form. Post Civil War era in Virginia...slavery is over right? Barely. Two families merge to free relatives from the hold of a barbaric plantation owner, a black and white family saga. MUSTARD SEED is a story of what truly creates family bonds. A fast read that really does keep your attention up to the last page!
    • 5/5
      Fantastic. The Civil War is over and so is the former slave’s struggle - or so Jordan believes. Growing up in an Ohio town that is fully accepting freedmen and runaway slaves, she has no idea about the reality of the suffering still going on in the South. A trip to Virginia with her mother proves her parents are right about conditions and Jordan is oh so wrong.
    • 4/5
      Mustard Seed is the sequel to Yellow Crocus, taking place about 10 years after the end of Yellow Crocus. It continues the story of Lisbeth and Mattie and their families in Virginia after the Civil War.
    • 4/5
      This book covered a subject that I had not previously thought about; the situation of black slaves after the end of the civil war. This is a book that needs to be read because of the subject matter, but it was not as enjoyable as Yellow Crocus. I felt the author was preaching to us rather than entertaining us. Good nonetheless.
    • 5/5
      LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this book. I'm not normally a huge fan of historical fiction but this book has captured my heart for life. Mustard Seed is the companion novel to Yellow Crocus (read that review here!), picking back up in the lives of Lisbeth and Mattie some 10 years after the first book ended. It's the tumultuous first years after the Civil War and Lisbeth is summoned back home to Virginia to be at her dying fathers bedside. Accompanied by her two children, Lisbeth returns to the family and life she escaped so long ago. Their place in society was dismantled when Lisbeth left, and the Civil War did them no favors, so it comes as no surprise to Lisbeth that the resentment and anger still radiate from her mother and brother. In the years following the Civil War, Mattie Freedman has written to her niece in the hopes of bringing her from the plantation to Oberlin, OH to begin a new, free life. When her requests go unanswered, Mattie decides to travel back to Virginia to fetch her in person. Her grown children, Jordan and Samuel (a college educated teacher and lawyer respectively) accompany her, back into the heart of the dying Confederacy, and a life they thought they left behind forever. The south remains dangerous for people like the Freedmans and when they find themselves the victims of violence and forced servitude, Lisbeth must use her position, privilege, and wits to help them. Absolutely brilliant read. Full of heart and hope, this book (in addition to Yellow Crocus) will be one that remains at the top of my favorites list. It serves as a great reminder that even when the world is ugly and unjust and your fight seems so big (which unfortunately is all too relatable some 200 years later in American history) that a simple deed of kindness, however small, can blossom and spread, edging out the dark. While revolutionaries and figures like Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, and Malala Yousafzai certainly deserve the recognition and accolades they receive, it is the small, unnoticed deeds that can also move the tides in the direction of change. "We don't get to pick how big our good gets to be, but each of us picks if we gonna do some good right where we are."These characters are fierce, brave, and loyal in the face of societal norms and decades of bred hate and fear. They give me hope, even in another time and place, that things can change, and small acts of kindness can snowball into big.
    • 5/5
      As I turned the final page of this book, I know this book will long linger with me. Now this is the second book in this series, and yes I recommend that you read “Yellow Crocus”, you won’t be disappointed. While this story brings our main characters back to Virginia the first book was during the Civil War and we followed them out.With this story the author has us returning to Virginia, and all the while I’m screaming to myself “No”, I can just feel frightened for them, and yet I had no idea how bad it could be.Somehow all of our main characters from the first book end up back in Virginia, and we reunite with some of those that we would rather not see again. Lisbeth and her Mattie are here along with their children, and we visit the Plantation that originally brought them together. I loved Lisbeth’s six-year-old Sadie when she pointed out the green leaf with the white stripe and points out that she is sure that the flower is yellow, of course!This trip back is an eye opener, and loved the Faith these people live, but will they all make it back? A page-turner for sure, I needed to know the ending.I received this book through Net Galley and Lake Union Publishing, and was not required to give a positive review.