When 19-year-old Abeona Browne's renowned abolitionist father Jon Browne dies in summer of 1860, devastating family secrets are revealed, and her life of privilege and naiveté in Southern Michigan becomes a frantic transatlantic search for someone she didn't even know existed. Still in mourning, Abeona sneaks aboard the ship carrying her father's attorney Terrence Swifte and his assistant Djimon-a man with his own secrets-on a quest to fulfill a dying wish. Along the journey, Abeona learns of her father's tragic and terrible past through a collection of letters intended for someone he lost long ago. Passage to the Dark Continent is fraught with wild beasts, raging storms, illness, and the bounty hunters who know Jon Browne's diaries are filled with damning secrets which could threaten the very anti-slavery movement he helped to build. Can Abeona overcome antebellum attitudes and triumph over her own fears to right the wrongs in her famous family's sordid past? A Thin Porridge is a Homeric tale of second chances, forgiveness, and adventure that will whisk readers from the filth of tweendecks, into the treachery of Cameroons Town, across the beauty of Table Bay, and deep into the heart of the fynbos-where Boer miners continue the outlawed scourge of slavery.