The Downstairs Girl

The Downstairs Girl is Jo Kuan, a smart, bold 17-year-old Chinese American. Jo lives with Old Gin, who's been her guardian since she was abandoned by parents she never knew. They live in a secret basement apartment under the home and print shop of the Bell family, who publish a local newspaper. Unbeknownst to the Bells, Jo and Old Gin have been living in the apartment -- formerly a hideout of abolitionists -- for years and secretly listening to their private conversations about their family and business lives. When Jo is fired from her job at a hat shop for being a "saucebox," her only alternative is a job as a lady's maid for Caroline Payne, the stuck up and generally obnoxious daughter of one of Atlanta's richest and most influential families. When Jo discovers that the Bells' newspaper has lost so many subscribers they may lose the paper and their home, she comes up with a plan to save them both. What the paper needs, believes Jo, is an advice column. Taking the pen name, Miss Sweetie, she writes a first column and slips it through the mail slot of the Bell's door. The column is an immediate hit and new subscribers flood the newspaper. At first, Jo's columns are witty, lighthearted, and free of controversy, but when she begins writing about discrimination, segregated trolleys, Jim Crow laws, and a woman's right to vote, there's an immediate backlash and a rival paper sets out to unmask Miss Sweetie. The identity of Miss Sweetie isn't the only mystery in this story. Jo finds a hidden letter that could finally reveal the identity of her parents, and she becomes involved in a secret interracial romance.