The year is 1843 when young Monette, beloved daughter of a French Creole sugar planter, is taken to New Orleans and sold into slavery. Sold along with her is Cyrus, a boy big for his age, torn from his mother without a chance to say goodbye.

           Together they go to Fox Creek Plantation in English Louisiana, home to the Jensey family. While Cyrus is sent to the fields, Monette becomes the childhood playmate of Kate, the planter’s daughter, and catches the eye of Breck, the planter’s son. It’s easier and safer for Monette to pretend life is normal. That she belongs. To forget her past, even to forget Cyrus. But as the years pass, it becomes clear that children of color do not belong in the world of the white elite—at least, not as equals. The brutality and powerlessness of slavery begin to take their toll upon Monette. Who is she now? Who will protect her? And who is that big boy from the fields who keeps pestering her?

           Of Sugar and Blood is a powerful novel set during one of the most turbulent times in American history. It is a story of race, privilege, the battle of wills, and the denial of freedom. But most of all, it is a story of love, a love that transcends all that threatens to tear it apart.