Shadow of a Quarter Moon by Eileen Clymer Schwab

1839 North Carolina - After her father dies, Jacy's unfeeling mother Claudia calls her a quadroon and reveals to her that her real mother is a slave who is still on the plantation.  Claudia tries to marry Jacy off to a man whom Jacy fears and hates.  Jacy runs away when Claudia threatens to sell her slave mother.  While I mostly enjoyed the story, the dialogue felt stilted to me.  I also thought that Jacy came to understand herself and her place in the world a bit too quickly.  But I did enjoy learning about the role that the Great Dismal Swamp played in the Underground Railroad.  While the book was set before the Civil War, it dealt with the issues of slavery and the Underground Railroad, so I included it as a book read for the Civil War Challenge 2011 (I finished it one day late - January 1st).  I rated it 3 out of 5.