A More Perfect Union, the powerful debut novel by Tammye Huf, has been chosen for the Jo Whiley Radio 2 Book Club. Tammye will be on the show on Monday 2 November.
We have the chance for you to win a set of 10 copies of this novel for your reading group.
To apply, please log in and fill in your details below before Friday 6 November.
Not yet a member of Reading Groups for Everyone? Sign up now.
A More Perfect Union
When Henry O’Toole escapes the Irish famine and sails to America, he doesn’t expect the anti-Irish prejudices that await him. Determined never to starve again, he changes his name to Henry Taylor to secure a job and safeguard his future. Traveling south to Virginia, he meets Sarah, a slave woman torn from her family and sold to another plantation. There she must navigate the power system of the white masters, as well as the hierarchy of her fellow slaves.
Even though Henry’s white skin represents the oppression Sarah suffers under, and even though having Sarah at his side would force Henry to abandon his hopes of prosperity, their attraction is undeniable and they fall in love. But in 1849 on a Virginian plantation, inter-racial marriage is not only illegal but considered to be an ungodly abomination. No matter how much they want to be together, Sarah is trapped on Jubilee Plantation, owned by another man. This is a love story of epic proportions – a forbidden relationship that has been forged in secrecy, and faces betrayal and jeopardy at every turn.
Tammye Huf is a teacher, translator and copywriter. Her short stories have been published in various magazines, including Diverse Voices Quarterly and The Penmen Review. She was runner-up in the 2018 London Magazine Short Story Prize. Originally from the USA, she moved to Germany and now lives in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, with her husband and three children.
