The Downstairs Girl by Stacy Lee

 Jo Kuan works as first a shop girl and later a lady's maid during the day, but at night she anonymously writes an advice column for a struggling newspaper.  Little do the owners of the newspaper know that Jo and her "uncle" Old Jen live in an old abolitionist hiding place under the newspaper office. Jo and her guardian are Chinese, but Jo was born in Georgia, and raised by Old Jen, who came to America as a young man to work on the railroad.  Since no one know where they live, they have to keep a low profile or risk losing the only home Jo can remember.  That becomes harder when Jo's advice column becomes popular and controversial.  When she is caught in the act of delivering one of her "anonymous" articles, she has to decide what she is willing to risk to keep having a way to let her real voice be heard.

I checked out this book because it is was on Overdrive's "Always Available" list.  When I started listening it, I almost returned it at once because I didn't like the voice actor. I stuck with it and ended up enjoying it pretty much.  Jo is an interesting protagonist.  She is a Chinese American living in the deep south and most people treat her like a colored person, but some do not.  I guess I always thought of the Chinese who ended up in California after the trans-continental railroad was finished, but it makes sense that not all the Chinese immigrants stayed in California.  Lee's writing style is a bit flowery for me.  She uses a lot of short simile's and metaphors to describe stuff.  They are not cliche; in fact, they were quite original, but I did get a little tired of them by the end.  Still, I enjoyed the book and it opened to me a new awareness of the plight of Chinese Americans in the Reconstruction era South.  (376, 2019)