A More Perfect Union

The forbidden love story of a slave woman and an Irish immigrant, inspired by the author’s great-great-grandparents.

Henry O’Toole sails to America in 1848 to escape poverty and famine in Ireland, only to find anti-Irish prejudice awaiting him. Determined never to starve again, he changes his surname to Taylor and heads south to the state of Virginia, seeking work as a travelling blacksmith on the prosperous plantations.

Sarah is a slave. Torn from her family and sold to Jubilee Plantation, she must navigate the hierarchy of her fellow slaves, the whims of her white masters, and now the attentions of the mysterious blacksmith.

Fellow slave Maple oversees the big house with bitterness and bile, and knows that a white man’s attention spells trouble. Given to her half-sister as a wedding present by their white father, she is set on being reunited with her husband and daughter, at any cost.

This extraordinary debut novel heralds the arrival of an exciting new voice in Black women’s writing. The novel is first-person narration told in alternating viewpoints. Set in 1848-1849 in Ireland, New York and Virginia, it is an interracial love story set in pre-Civil War America, and inspired by the true story of Huf’s great-great grandparents. Along with love and race, it touches on themes of identity, sacrifice, belonging and survival.

‘...powerful and convincing.’ — The Times

‘A moving debut novel.’ — The Sunday Times