“Jesus was born in Israel, the bible said he had hair like lambs wool and feet like bronze what white man do you know that looks like that?”

I can't believe this is fiction.

This heartbreaking book tells the story of Judah, an African woman who is kidnapped and taken from Africa at a very young age and brought to the United States of America to be enslaved.

Honestly, this book made me cry more times than I want to admit. Judah is such a noble and innocent character, but at the same time so strong and so fierce, that it makes you love her and feel sorry for her and rage over the misfortunes that happen in her life.

The narrator of this book does a wonderful job, her voice envelops you, also, when she sings, she gives you goosebumps, no matter that you do not understand the language in which she sings.

The mission of someone who, through fiction, wants to give a voice to someone who never had it, is hard, because it can easily offend those who lived or live in similar situations, so I cannot comment on the good or bad job the author did with his representation, but I want to say that the story moved me a lot.

Trigger warning: slavery, child abuse, sexual abuse, racism, mistreatment, violence, disease.

I found it a bit boring. I couldn't really get into it and that may be because I was listening to it as an audiobook and I don't like listening to them.

“Send Judah First” follows the existence of an oppressed young lady, seized from Africa and sold in Virginia in the pre-American Civil War period. Dr. Johnson is a minister, instructor, just as figuring out how to compose. Judah’s life was broken when she was taken from her town in Africa. Judah was beaten, bound, and subjugated, winding up as an oppressed cook at Belle Grove Plantation in Middleton, VA. Judah can’t see how her master, a reverend, can lecture the bible and own kin. Dealing with the children and preparing three suppers per day for more than 100 people, Judah’s life is rebuffing- particularly by the present principles.

I was unable to quit reading this book until I completed it. This read was a serious stunner. The author did a great deal of examination before composing this book. It is very elegantly composed. The narrating was unimaginably fascinating, the characters were credible and this was a thoroughly examined plotline. The youthful slave kid was fairly a virtuoso, figuring out how to cook in gigantic amounts. She investigated heavily in her cooking and every last bit of her obligations. Simply knowing what these slaves needed to suffer to get by and keep their families safe and accommodated is marvelous. The creator has kept the memory of this youthful slave young lady alive and he feels it’s significant that we as whole ability slavery started and what battles and difficulties they needed to comfort. The writer realizes how to watch his readers. Judah’s story was clarified exhaustively.

I very little knew about Slavery however the more I read the more fascinated I became. This load of subjugated people whose names are deleted from history without any records at all is extremely terrible. A large number of their accounts are untold however because of Mr. Johnson we will have a little understanding of what their lives were truly similar to. I felt this was a particularly interesting read. Judah’s plans were remembered for this book. The characters were very dependent on her and I figured how tedious their lives would have been without Judah. This is my first book by this writer and I promise you it absolutely will not be my last. I appreciated the book very much and highly recommend it!

This is fantastic historical fiction that brings to life Judah, an enslaved woman at the Belle Grove Plantation in Virginia. Thank you, Brian C. Johnson, for creating what could have been Judah's life story. Judah lived a hard life as the cook of the plantation, and she was expected to produce huge, elaborate meals every day three times a day for both the white people and all of the enslaved people who kept the plantation running. This tired me out just reading about it. Judah's descriptions of the foods she was preparing made my mouth water!

This book brought out so many emotions in me. It is so incredibly sad and wrong that Judah was taken from her family and home, and sad that she had almost zero say in her life and how she wanted to live it, and the actions of the plantation owners and those of all but one white person in this book made me so very, very angry! All of these emotions are the exact reason Judah's story needed to be told.

I especially appreciated the conversations centered around religion that made the argument against racism. These were so very good!

Thank you to NetGalley and Hidden Shelf Publishing House for the audiobook copy of this book in exchange for my review.

I highly recommend Send Judah First by Brian C. Johnson and Narrated by Elizabeth Isitor book or audiobook, especially if you love period history. I found the narrator Elizabeth Isitor did a fantastic job throughout and you become apart of this audiobook.

This historical period fiction set in the 19th century and based on a true story about Judah, who was 12 year, born a free African girl who was captured during a midnight raid to her village. She was taken away from her loving family and friends put on a ship with many others. Scared and all alone Judah and many others are to be sold as a slaves in America. You will be taken on her journey of her life and find out what happens to Judah. But, be warned: This book/audiobook contains - sexual abuse, kidnapping, verbal and physical violence, illness, slavery that will have you shocked and heartrending at times I did need tissues whilst listening to this.

This is a Must read or listen to book for this year.

Big Thank you to NetGalley, Hidden Shelf Publishing House, and the author Brian C. Johnson, for the audiobook in return for an honest review.

This was a great read. I featured it as Book of the Day on all my social media platforms, and I’ll include it in my monthly roundup of news releases for my Black Fiction Addiction blog.

Send Judah First is a beautifully moving fictitious story based on Judah, a female slave taken from her African home land to become a slave in USA in the 1800’s.
Whilst not much is known about the real Judah, other than she was captured by slavers, sold in to slavery as a cook, had 12 children and sadly died a slave, Brian Johnson has done a brilliant job of imagining her life and struggles she went through.
The story is well researched, true to facts and is well written with great characters and it all flows well too.
I love the sheer strength and resilience of Judah, and the other strong female characters.
Whilst the ending is sad, and Judah’s situation horrific it is heartwarming to hear the snippets of happiness and the family she made for herself during her tragic life.
The narrator of the audiobook is perfect. Her singing voice brings the narration to life in a way reading myself wouldn’t have done. I love the stoic, matter of fact way it is narrated too. It seems really fitting to Judah’s story.

I received this book free from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. This was a good historical fiction novel. I enjoyed getting to know Judah and was sad when the book came to the end. There were some sections especially near the end that were a bit slow and I found the narrator ok.

For more reviews and bookish posts please visit: https://www.ManofLaBook.com

Send Judah First: The Erased Life of an Enslaved Soul by Brian C. Johnson follows the life of an enslaved girl, kidnapped from Africa and sold in Virginia in the pre-American Civil War era. Dr. Johnson is a preacher, teacher, as well as finding time to write.

Judah’s life was shattered when she was stolen from her village in Africa. Judah was beaten, chained and enslaved, ending up as an enslaved cook at Belle Grove Plantation in Middletown, VA.

Judah cannot understand how her master, a reverend, can preach the Bible and also own people. Taking care of her children and cooking three meals a day for over 100 persons, Judah’s life is punishing – especially by today’s standards.

Altogether, Send Judah First: The Erased Life of an Enslaved Soul by Brian C. Johnson is enjoyable on several levels. It is a well written story, historically fascinating, as well as intellectually engaging and stimulating. Additionally, the story behind the novel is just as fascinating.

The story is told from the view point of Judah, an enslaved cook. The dialect and realism of speech, coupled with Judah’s keen insight, as well as a mechanism for her to overhear conversations works very well.

Judah is an enslaved cook, a most difficult job, which allows her to work inside. Dr. Johnson took care to particularly discuss the meal preparation – that alone was, for me, worth the price of admission.

In the novel, the author gives the plantation owner, James Madison‘s brother-in-law as a matter of fact, the role of a minister. This allows the characters to discuss their hypocritical stance on Christianity balanced against the institution of slavery in a most interesting manner. Mr. Johnson does admit that, in essence, he created this role solely for the religious discussion in the end notes.

As a teacher, Mr. Johnson took his class to the Belle Grove Plantation on a trip where he eventually found Judah’s name recorded. She was enslaved as a cook, and gave birth to twelve children. That’s it, a whole life summed up in a sentence or two.

Undoubtedly, each life is world of its own, Mr. Johnson created a fascinating, yet fictitious account of Judah’s life through impeccable research and abundance of talent. The audiobook was narrated by Elizabeth Isitor, a perfect choice that brought much to the story using her exotic voice and accent.

First I have to warn you about all the trigger warnings in this book: sexual abuse, kidnapping, verbal and physical violence, illness, slavery
It is such a fantastic read, one that I literally couldn't put it down and I was listening to it all the time

This is a heartbreaking historical fiction set in the 19th century based on a true story about Judah, a born free African girl who is captured during a midnight raid to her village.
The novel recounts her plight and all the pain and suffering she, and others she came to love, had to endure throughout her life. Judah is taken under the wing of Sally and trained in the kitchen to be a cook under her first master and then sold as the main cook for a plantation in Virginia.

This resembles so much the lives the people of colour from Africa have been lived during those atrocious times and I can only imagine how hard must have been for them to carry such a big trouble with them
Being the main character a cook the story is embellished by descriptions of food preparation and recipes. The novel was very well researched and beautifully written loosely based on a limited number of historical records. I listened to this as an audiobook and the narrator was superb and made the experience even more memorable for me. I highly recommend to listen to this story as an audiobook. Overall, I enjoyed this book very much

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this audiobook #sendjudahfirst

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* Good historical fiction but found some parts odd, the story being fiction and all i didnt think it was necessary but overall good read

Audiobook Review

This is a heartrending historical fiction set in the 19th century based on a true story about Judah, a born free African girl who is captured during a midnight raid to her village. She is ruthlessly ripped away from her family and friends and put on a ship with many others to be sold as a slaves in America. The novel recounts her plight and all the pain and suffering she, and others she came to love, had to endure throughout her life. Judah is taken under the wing of Sally and trained in the kitchen to be a cook under her first master and then sold to Isaac Hite as the main cook for Belle Grove plantation in Virginia. Being the main character a cook the story is embellished by descriptions of food preparation and recipes. The novel was very well researched and beautifully written loosely based on a limited number of historical records.

I listened to this as an audiobook and the narrator was superb and made the experience even more memorable for me. I highly recommend to listen to this story as an audiobook. Overall, I enjoyed this book very much.

Thanks to NetGalley for this audiobook.

Sometimes Netgalley sends me emails to tempt me to read or listen to something. I have to thank them for this recommendation. I am so happy that I got a chance to pick up "Send Judah First" by Brian C. Johnson. It is one of these stories that everyone should read. It's the story of an erased life. Judah's story is both fictionalized and confirmed, a mix of authentic and embellished, but it's all factually based in history. I picked this up on NetGalley, but if you are interested in listening to a copy for yourself, you can purchase it on Audible.

For a summary, this is Judah's story, and she was a young African girl of 13 who lived on the Ivory Coast. One terrible night, Judah was taken and sold into slavery in the 1800s. As readers are taken with her from the African coast, through her torments, the horrible ugly truth of slavery, learning English, having a new religion forced upon her, and all of the brutal nature of her entire life, and to the end. We are there when she suffers, we are there when she feels triumph, and most of all, we are witnesses to her life.

To start this review, let's go into the critiques. I found it difficult to find any flaws in this story, but there are some pacing issues in the narrative. Sometimes the story builds to a crescendo in a scene that has taken to its emotional wall. It's usually impactful and drives home a point or theme to the chapter. A sentence later, the story moves forward in time, sometimes weeks or months, or even in a case of a year. It's clunky at times, but this is the biggest flaw I found.

The only other critique I had was with the ending. I never got any closure to Judah's life. Now that likely has to do with the reality of her life. But every story needs an ending, and this one was abrupt and unexplained until we got to the Author's notes at the end, which explained the context of the story. In which case, I have never considered the Author's notes to be part of a story. They are just notes. They have nothing to do with the beginning, middle, and ending of the story. Without this Author's note, though, I wouldn't have understood what the context was to the ending as it was presented.

Now let's go into what I enjoyed about "Send Judah First," and I would like to start by reading to me as realistic even in parts the Author later admitted was fiction. This story is impactful regardless of fiction or non-fiction. The characters, both real and fictionalized, were realistic and had life and breath. The idea of this story is to be a biography of someone who never had one.

For the narration part, the narrator of this story is Elizabeth Isitor. She gives this uniqueness to the story all in and of herself. There is a lot of the Ivory Coast represented in words, but Miss Isitor brings such life to all of it that you can almost feel the ocean breeze. You can also feel the torments, pains, and sadness that Judah goes through, all because of how this story is delivered. I am humbled and honored to have heard the life that Judah had because of this wonderful narrator. Thank you, miss Isitor.

Also, fun fact, some recipes are in the story for the digital copies that you can purchase according to the Author's Note, and I'm for one considering some of them in my house. I learned an interesting trick to biscuit making that I'm willing to try. There are some fantastic recipes told in the story, pork pie, peach cobbler, and all sorts of deliciousness. Even the red bean soup mentioned which I'm not sure which bean it is, but I feel like it might be a lintel, and I'm interested in learning more about it. The food sounded fantastic. The soul who cooked that food in the story was far more bright and wonderous than anything mentioned on a plate.

Gosh, I don't mean to gush over a book, but I cannot help it. I don't know if anyone who reads this can tell how much I loved this story, but I did. I barely could put it down. I must have cried at least a dozen times and smiled more at the good parts too. This story rendered me heartbroken at times and brought me kind moments at others.

Overall, I felt that "Send Judah First" is one of the best stories I've ever read, with a score of 92%, a 5 Star Review. The story of Judah goes on the Mrs. Y Recomends list, and I'm recommending it to anyone. "Send Judah First" is a powerful story and humbling, and I feel we all can learn a lot from it regardless of skin color or where we were born. We who are humans need reminders of humanity. This is a huge reminder, and I hope it becomes part of recommended reading the world over.

Judas is detailed in her storytelling. She is a cook. Her story is that of a simple cook’s life. Except... she is a piece of property, she is owned, she is a commodity, she is a slave.

This is a fictionalized memoir about a girl that actually did exist (Virginia’s Belle Grove Plantation 1800’s). Her story begins from the day she is kidnapped from her home in Africa, brought to America and sold as a slave.

Yes, this has the horrific parts I dreaded might be in it. It also has incredibly poignant moments about learning, coping, healing, love & friendship.

Here’s the best part. I was a fly on the wall. Hearing all the details from Judah’s point of view made me feel like I was there, as if I was watching her go through everything. I couldn’t put it down, and when I did I was just thinking about getting back to it.

I audiobooked this one. Nice narration by Elizabeth Isitor. She sings beautifully.

Special thanks to Hidden Shelf Publishing House, Brian C. Johnson, Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), Members' Audiobooks & NetGalley.
#SendJudahFirst #NetGalley

TW : sexual abuse, kidnapping, verbal and physical violence, illness, slavery

This story is fast paced, engaging, and absolutely heart wrenching. The author brilliantly depicted the white man's bigotry and entitlement in that era (I wish I can say things have changed, buuut...)

This book offered a unique perspective about how life was likely to be for a slave on a plantation, instead of being about escape on the underground railroad : this was about Judah's life and hardships, with a sprinkle of romance and happiness added in. Oh, and the audiobook narrator, Elizabeth Isitor, was excellent and added and extra dimension to this story, bringing Judah back to life.

I also appreciated the postscript at the end of the book, specifying the historical accuracies of this story, as well as the fictional aspects.

So much history in this important work. Judah is written as an interesting & likeable girl who was stolen from her home. There are many captivating details about her day to day life throughout the book. The author has given us the honor of "watching" her grow" bear children and fall in love, interspersed with lots of recipes, songs and a bit of preaching. I highly recommend this book to all lovers of history.

This is a very moving account of a period in history that raises many emotions.

It was well written and the narrator was perfect! She really added to the whole experience. I loved the interludes of song and native language as this gave the story an authenticity.

I enjoyed reading this and would definitely recommend this to others.

Review also posted on Amazon.

Story: 4
Narration: 3

I was torn to write a review about this audiobook. Although I liked a lot of things about this book and narration, some held me back.

Story:
I liked this heartbreaking story. Yuda was a 12-year old girl when slave traders took her from her home village in Africa. In America, others called her Suki and later Judah. It is a fictional story about a real slave woman that worked on Belle Grove Plantation in Virginia. We do not know much about her life - just that she was a cook, had 12 children, and died in 1836. Everything else is a work of fiction, speculation of what her life might be.

Narration:
It was the narration that I was torn about the most. I liked Judah's native language at the beginning of the book and the narrator's singing. The original narration was too slow for me. But that's why we have a speed option on audiobook apps. :) And 1.75 was good for me. I didn't like the pronunciation of the name Suki and some other words. I'm not sure if this is the correct spelling, as I didn't see the book or some other source to confirm it.

The story is very good. The author here offers a glimpse into the life of enslaved people in the 19th century. Narration, in my opinion, could use some work. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this audiobook, and I would recommend it, as I'm sure many audio readers will appreciate it despite these small narration flaws.

Thanks to the publisher for the opportunity to listen to this! All opinions are my own.

Speechless....

This is actually my first audiobook and I wasn't in anyway disappointed, as a matter of fact, I'm looking forward to listening to more audiobooks.
Reading Send Judah First felt so real, it had me in my feelings... It is so educating, especially in the aspect of food making...
The ending was totally unexpected . Brian C. Johnson did a great JOB!

Send Judah First: The Erased Life of an Enslaved Soul bu Brian C. Johnson and narrated by Elizabeth Isitor is a historical fiction novel based on an entry the slave ledger from Virginia’s Belle Grove Plantation relating to enslaved woman called Judah, who died in 1836. According to the ledger Judah had 12 children and worked as a cook on the plantation. From this entry, Johnson created a story that envisaged Judah’s life both in Africa as well as in the America.

Judah’s resilience was well depicted throughout the book, despite the numerous tragic events that befell her. The book was well researched, and giving Judah a Swahili voice was quite original and the Transatlantic Slave Trade is often depicted as being focused on West Africa. It has definitely made me want to learn more about that.

From an audio book perspective, the positives included Isitor’s singing voice which was quite haunting at times. I do however have to say that her pronunciation of Judah was distracting as it varied between Judah (in the Anglophone way) and Yudah (in the manner that a German would pronounce Johann). There were some other mispronunciations that did grate hence the lower rating. I do feel that if I had read z physical copy of the book I would be able to rate it more highly.

***Thank you to Netgalley and Hidden Shelf Publishing House for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.***