Henry Townsend works his farm and crafts boots in pre-Civil War Virginia. Once enslaved, he now owns slaves himself on his own plantation. When Henry dies, his wife Caldonia falls into deep mourning. Her grief throws the plantation into disorder. Slaves escape under cover of darkness. Families that slavery had forced together now split apart and turn on each other. The chaos spreads beyond the Townsend property. White patrol officers, poorly paid for their work, watch as free black people get captured and sold into bondage. Talk of slave uprisings spreads through the county. White families begin to doubt the enslaved people they had believed they could trust. The plantation that Henry built becomes the center of a world where former bonds break down and old certainties crumble.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 19th-century, african-american-historical-fiction
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-secrets, societal-collapse
Setting: Virginia
Period: Pre-Civil War
Unknown Binding · HarperCollins
Content warnings: slavery, violence