**Shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2023** George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis triggered abolitionist shockwaves. Calls to defund the police found receptive ears around the world.
In 1850s South Carolina, Rose, an enslaved woman, faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag with a few items. Soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold.
Botho Pere finds work as a miner in South Africa and he has to leave his wife, Nthatisi, and their two children in Lesotho. There are secrets threatening to unravel the delicate thread that has been holding their family together.