In "Camino Ghosts," the third book in the Camino series, he does it again with his compelling story of Lovely Jackson, an 80 year-old Black woman who is determined to save Dark Isle, the now deserted island once settled by both shipwrecked Africans kidnapped into slavery and escaped slaves. Lovely is the last of those who settled on the island and she stopped living there when she was 15, only returning to tend to the cemetery where her ancestors are buried. Listen now and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed | SoundStack “It was a ship from Virginia, called Venus and it had around 400 slaves on board, packed like sardines,” bookstore owner Bruce Cable tells Mercer Mann, a bestselling author who is looking for a new book subject.
“Well, it left Africa with 400 but not all made it. Many died at sea. The conditions on board were unimaginable, to say the least.
Anyway, Venus finally went down about a mile out to sea near Cumberland Island. Since the slaves were chained and shackled, almost all of them drowned. A few clung to the wreckage and washed ashore in the storm on Dark Island, as it became known.
Or Dark Isle. It was unnamed in 1760. They were taken in by runaways from Georgia, and together they built a little community.
Two hundred years went by, everybody died or moved away and now it is deserted.” For years no one wanted Dark Isle, an inaccessible and unfriendly barrier island of impenetrable jungle, poisonous snakes and prowling pan.
