Megan Allen and the events of her debut novel, ‘The Slave Players’ both have their roots in the USA, and now they will find a readership there too, as David Adams at Burn House Publishing has acquired the rights from Laura Macdougall at Tibor Jones & Associates.
‘The Slave Players’ is a timely novel exploring racial tensions, and events unfold at a time when they are at breaking point. There is violence across the nation, and one army colonel has a vision of restoring a terrible type of order.
He wants to play a game.
A game in which the pre-Civil War ‘glory days’ of slavery are reinstated with a crucial difference – this time white people will be serving black masters. All he needs now are players. When a dozen black teenage girls take a wrong turn deep in the Alabama countryside they find themselves victims of a heinous crime, and the stage is set for the colonel to show the nation what persecution and tyranny can do to the human spirit.
Megan Allen has long been active in fighting for human and animal rights, and ‘The Slave Players’ is a successor to her organisation of a high school walk-out to protest the display of the Confederate flag, which led to its removal from multiple California schools. Having just completed her Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh, she is currently living in London and working on her second novel. You can follow her on Instagram here.