Goodness, feels weird to be outta the lounge.

I've just written the opening of my second novel. The main character is a slave on a cotton plantation in West Virginia in the years before the American Civil War. I've tried to make the language of her narrative authentic without being unreadable, and that's what I'm most interested in feedback on.

Ignore the name of the plantation. That will go. I was just trying to come up with something sweet-sounding.

Thanks, guys!

<Added>

Here's the link:

http://www.writewords.org.uk/archive/17652.asp