Hero da Costa is the only child of John da Costa, a former black slave from the West Indies.

Her white mother is the daughter of a Jewish merchant who owns a pub.

She died giving birth to Hero. Hero's father has been taken away to be sent back to the slave plantation on Barbados, the pub is to be sold, and Hero has been forced to move in with her mother's family in the East End of London.

They despise her for being half black and treat her cruelly.

But Hero has fighting spirit and determination to rescue her father.

But first she has to escape from the clutches of her aunt and uncle and their villainous henchmen.

Set in the early nineteenth century, this is an exciting novel with an exciting appealing heroine, over six feet tall, given to fighting back, often literally.

Catherine Johnson is Jamaican/Welsh and is the author of the recently published "In Black and White".