Myriad buys epic love story début from Huf

Myriad Editions has bought début novelist Tammye Huf’s epic interracial love story between a slave woman and an Irish immigrant.

Set in 1840s Ireland, New York and the pre-Civil War Southern state of Virginia, A More Perfect Union was inspired by the true story of Huf’s own great-great grandparents.

Publishing director Candida Lacey bought world rights directly from the author, for publication in spring 2021.

The novel follows Henry O’Toole, who escapes the Irish famine by travelling to America, meeting Sarah, a Virginia slave woman. The synopsis says: "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. They soon fall in love, but in 1849 on a Virginian plantation, interracial love is considered an illegal abomination. No matter how much they want to be together, Sarah is trapped on Jubilee Plantation, owned by another man."

Lacey said: "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 born storyteller and this is a breathtakingly exciting, heart-wrenching and extraordinarily polished début novel. It is also a fresh look at some of the most fateful years in America’s past. Tammye wears her research lightly but there is an unmistakable authenticity to the description of life on US president James Madison’s Montpelier Plantation where her great-great grandparents met. She has told their story with passion, conviction and grace."