**This is an Extended Preview of the forthcoming novel, A More Perfect Union.  It is not the complete novel.**

Inspired by true events, A More Perfect Union is an epic story of love and courage, desperation and determination, and three people whose lives are inescapably entwined…

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

Maple is enslaved on Jubilee Plantation. Given to her half-sister as a wedding present by their father, she longs to return to her daughter and husband.  She sees the arrival of another enslaved woman, Sarah, as her one chance to be reunited with her family. 

Sarah, torn from her own family, has to learn to navigate the hierarchy of her fellow enslaved people, as well as the power system of her new white masters, and now the mysterious blacksmith who is promising her the world—and her freedom too.