A powerful historical fiction novel about the American Civil War based on real events in Liverpool. A two-hander between Trinity, a slave who stows away on a ship and ends up in Liverpool where she uncovers a conspiracy to help the Confederacy win the war - and Jubal, a Confederate officer sent to raise funds for the war effort.

Liverpool, 1863: Newly arrived in England, wealthy liberals enlist Trinity, an escaped slave girl, in their campaign to abolish slavery and support Abraham Lincoln's Union. Jubal, a high-ranking Confederate officer, has arrived to find supporters and raise funds for the opposing side. When Trinity discovers a high-stakes conspiracy to win the war for the South, she must risk everything to stop it – including her new-found freedom. But who will believe a runaway slave? And who can she really trust?

“Chadwick's prose paints his shuffling urban milieu with a nose for detail, inhaling the rich tang of docklands crowds, the sweeping egalitarianism of street life forming a tragic backbone for the limitations of the rich. What really stands out, however, is the twin narrative, muddying the heroic waters yet acknowledging their existence in a time of violent opposition. It amounts to a revealing look at vested interests, and the fact that Britain has more blood on its hands than it would care to admit.” Joshua Potts, The Skinny “Tells of Liverpool's secret role in a conflict that still divides the US ... brings the teeming streets of Empire-era Liverpool to vivid life.” Liverpool Echo “First-class storytelling. An addictive novel with love and gun smoke and a tremendous feel for its time and its settings, lived out by characters of real passion and true human complexity.” Paul Du Noyer, founder of MOJO magazine and author of Liverpool: Wondrous Place

It was like this: my father died sometime past in an accident repairing the big cotton gin. Brother Benjamin lately drowned in the river. Everybody said this was by tragic accident, but we all knew otherwise. No other living relatives, least not that I knew of. Missy Honoria and my owner, Master Zebulon Giddings, perceived these things all too well. After my mother’s burial they would watch close, suspecting I’d run. No family – what’s to lose? But they wouldn’t watch me before my mother’s burial. Now, tonight, was my brief and only opportunity. Anger and regret aplenty bundled in my head. Guilt, too. Girl leaves her mother unburied, she’s got a powerful price to pay. But right now, no room for sentiment, no time for tears.