
Historical fiction book · Open Library
Trembling earth
Unknown author · historical fiction
In 1864, two boys, one a slave running toward freedom and one hoping to collect the reward for capturing him, make their way through Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp, relying on knowledge the white boy's father, disabled by the war, had passed on to him in happier times.
About this historical novel
Trembling earth by Unknown author is historical fiction rooted in Global / multiple. In 1864, two boys, one a slave running toward freedom and one hoping to collect the reward for capturing him, make their way through Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp, relying on knowledge the white boy's father, disabled by the war, had passed on to him in happier times.
On HisFic we tag it under 1. Literary historical fiction so you can pair it with similar story types. Recurring themes include georgia civil war, 1861-1865, slavery, fathers and sons, fiction, and fugitive slaves.
Use HisFic’s free journey planner to stay in this era or subgenre, save titles to a want-to-read list in your browser, and open Amazon when you are ready to buy. HisFic is discovery-only—not a bookstore—so pages like this exist to help you choose the next historical novel with intent.
Plot summary
In 1864, two boys, one a slave running toward freedom and one hoping to collect the reward for capturing him, make their way through Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp, relying on knowledge the white boy's father, disabled by the war, had passed on to him in happier times.
Subgenres
Eras
- Not classified yet
More like this on HisFic
Curated titles that share era, story type, or themes.
- Homegoing · Yaa Gyasi
Linked stories follow two half-sisters’ lineages across centuries of African and American history.
- The Underground Railroad · Colson Whitehead
An enslaved woman’s escape reimagines the Underground Railroad as a literal train—and faces America’s brutal history.
- War and Peace · Leo Tolstoy
Five Russian families move through court, love, and the Napoleonic invasion as 1805 becomes Borodino and Moscow burns. Tolstoy’s epic is Napoleonic historical fiction on a national scale—ballrooms and battlefields, Pierre and Natasha, and the question of who makes history.
- Kindred · Octavia E. Butler
On her twenty-sixth birthday in 1976 Los Angeles, Dana Franklin is yanked to a Maryland plantation whenever Rufus Weylin, a red-haired boy who will grow up to enslave her ancestors, is about to die—and she has to keep him alive or never be born. Octavia E. Butler’s 1979 novel is time-slip historical fiction of the early nineteenth-century South: each stay is longer, her white husband Kevin is stranded with her, and the past does not return her whole.
- Beloved · Toni Morrison
In 1873 Cincinnati, escaped slave Sethe is still not free: Sweet Home’s horrors follow her, and the ghost of the baby she killed rather than see returned to bondage takes flesh as a hungry young woman called Beloved. Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer-winning novel is Reconstruction historical fiction of slavery’s afterlife—memory, motherhood, and a haunting that will not stay buried.
- Washington Black · Esi Edugyan
In 1830 on Faith Plantation in Barbados, eleven-year-old George Washington Black is taken from the cane fields to serve Christopher “Titch” Wilde, who is building a hydrogen balloon he calls the Cloud-cutter—and when a death puts a bounty on Wash, the two cut the tether and flee. Esi Edugyan’s 2018 novel is adventure historical fiction of the 1830s, from an enslaved boy’s escape out of Barbados through Virginia, the Arctic, Nova Scotia, London, and Morocco.
Regions & places
Global / multiple
Themes
- georgia civil war, 1861-1865
- slavery
- fathers and sons
- fiction
- fugitive slaves
- african americans
- history
- slaves
Tags
open-library