Blood & Sugar Quotes

“Mutato nomine de te fabula narrator. Change but the name and the tale is told of you.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

“How well do you feel the book portrayed life in eighteenth-century Britain and the ever-expanding London? Did you get a sense of Britain’s place in the world, and how the British viewed themselves as a nation?”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

“I think slavery the most abhorrent design ever conceived by man. How we can all ourselves a Christian nation, I don't know. But abolition will never happen. Not in my lifetime anyway. The trade's too lucrative. And people don't just care enough about Africans on the other side of the world. (p. 38)”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

“How did you feel about the end of the book? Did you have a view on Harry’s choices and compromises? What would Tad have done differently?”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

“What were the similarities between Harry, Scipio and Tad? What were the differences?”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

“Which characters did you like, and which did you dislike? Did you change your mind about any of them? For better or worse?”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

“How did you feel about the author’s decision to use one first-person narrator? Would the book have benefited from other points of view? Or did you like the sense of being on a journey with Harry, knowing only what he knows when he knows it? How reliable was Harry as a narrator?”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

“What do you think was the nature of the relationship between Harry and Tad? Did that relationship make Harry a more or less sympathetic character in your eyes? How much do you think Harry’s wife, Caro, knew about the extent of their friendship?”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

“Did you get a sense of the tension between Britain’s reliance on slavery and the values of the Enlightenment? Are there any modern-day phenomena that this reminded you of? Freedom is a theme of the book, not just in terms of slavery but also the freedom to live one’s life as one chooses. Which characters does the author use to illustrate this theme? How do the Spinoza quotes at the beginning of each part of the book reflect it?”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

“Did you get a sense of the tension between Britain’s reliance on slavery and the values of the Enlightenment? Are there any modern-day phenomena that this reminded you of? F”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

“How did the book make you feel about Britain’s role in the slave trade? Did the author manage to convey the horrors of the Middle Passage, despite illustrating these through character accounts rather than directly?”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar