Burn Down Master’s House

Luke and Henri are enslaved on a Virginia plantation called Magnolia Row. Luke is quick-witted and can read. Henri has a defiant spirit. Both want out of the cruelty around them, and the bond they form there sets other people in motion.

The book follows several lives across the American South as the country divides. Josephine is a young girl who watches Luke and Henri and says nothing, using her silence as a weapon while she waits for her moment.

Charity Butler takes her fight for freedom to court and wins, then faces a legal system built to wreck the life she and her husband have made. Her husband, once enslaved, showed his nerve as a boy beside Josephine.

Nathaniel is a different case. He is a Black enslaver who exploits other Black people and copies the brutality of the white enslavers beside him. His rule is fragile and contradictory, and it turns into a force of its own.

Historical fiction with a wide cast, it is told through separate acts of resistance that connect, sometimes quietly and sometimes violently. It draws on the true stories of men and women who fought back against slavery. The reading is serious and often harsh, with cruelty and defiance always close together.