Book Spotlight: The Loom

The Loom 

Paperback – ebook

December 1, 2011

by Shella Gillus 

• 312 pages
• Publisher: Guideposts 
• ISBN-13: 978-0824948160

A slave is torn between the love she has and the life she doesn’t.

Lydia was a common slave with a common life until the day she entered a world no slave had gone before. Pale skin and deceit opened the door to wealth and a power she had only dreamed of. But what she didn’t count on was falling in love. What she didn’t realize was life was not always black or white.

Lydia knew her fate. Like every other slave on the Maryland plantation, her life would end at the loom...

Throughout the pre-Civil War South, older slaves too worn out for anything else worked daily in the plantation's loom room, weaving and creating cloth for their families. Tucked away out of sight and forgotten by most everyone, the wisdom and hard-won experience of these slaves were often overlooked. But Lydia, a light-skinned house slave, listens to their words and dreams of a better life.

When running away leads to her recapture, Lydia discovers that with her pale skin, the right clothing, and pretense, she can walk into a world of freedom and wealth she has only dreamed of.

But Lydia struggles to leave behind the man she loves and the culture of a world in which she belongs. Drawing on the wise community in the plantation's loom room, Lydia chases freedom in a way no one ever expected and finds that she ultimately must choose between the love she has and the life she doesn't.

The Loom is a colorful tale of love linked to a lie and the discovery that life is not always black or white.

About the Author

Shella Gillus received a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arizona and earned her Screen Actor's Guild card while working in the film industry in Los Angeles. She has been crowned Miss Black Heritage and 1st runner-up Miss Black Arizona, and has done national media. The Loom is her fiction debut. She lives with her husband, Stacey, and their two children in Dallas.