At age twelve, Ivy is sold into slavery by her impoverished parents and this begins her unbelievable journey from Croatia's Adriatic coast to Charleston, South Carolina but this was only the beginning of her odyssey. Her story also chronicles a young girl's rise from abject poverty, danger and serfdom to freedom, education and respectability. Along the way Ivy acquires two women friends that have their own stories that both cross and parallel her adventures.
We learn of her life from her very own lips as she is required to tell it all to an incredulous Undersecretary of War in the closing months of our Civil War.
