This Here Is Love: A Novel

Longlisted for the 2026 Aspen Words Literary Prize

As the seventeenth century burns to a close in Tidewater, Virginia, America's character is wrought in the fires of wealth, race, and freedom.

Young Bless, the only child left to her enslaved mother, stubbornly crafts the terms of her vital existence. She stands as the lone bulwark between her mother and irreparable despair, her mother's only possibility of hope, as Bless reshapes the boundaries of love.

David is a helping child and a solace to his parents, and he gave a purpose to their trials. His survival hinges on his mother's shrewd intellect and ferocious fight, but his sustenance is his freed Black father's dream of emancipation for the entire family.

Jack Dane, a Scots-Irish boy, sails to Britain's colonies when his father sells him into indentured servitude as an escape from poverty. There Jack learns from the rich the value of each person's life.

A breathtaking, haunting, and epic saga, This Here Is Love intimately intertwines us with these beautifully drawn, unforgettable American characters. Bless, taken to serve the slaveowner's daughter, must decide where she belongs: with the enslaved or above them. David, sold away from his people, retreats into himself even as he yearns to unite with others. Jack, acting impetuously, changes his fortune, but will doing so sacrifice his humanity?

All three come together on Jack's land. As they face and challenge each other, they will relinquish and remake beliefs about family and freedom, even as they confront the limits of love.