The Mermaid Of Black Conch

This enchanting tale of a cursed mythical creature and the lonely fisherman who falls in love with her is "a daring, mesmerizing novel…single-handedly bringing magic realism up-to-date" (Maggie O’Farrell, best-selling author of Hamnet). "Sentence by sensuous sentence, Roffey builds a verdant, complicated world that is a pleasure to live inside.... You might start to believe in the existence of mermaids.” —The New York Times In 1976, David is fishing off the island of Black Conch when he comes upon a creature he doesn’t expect: a mermaid by the name of Aycayia. Once a beautiful young woman, she was cursed by jealous wives to live in this form for the rest of her days. But after the mermaid is caught by American tourists, David rescues and hides her away in his home, finding that, once out of the water, she begins to transform back into a woman. Now David must work to win Aycayia's trust while she relearns what it is to be human, navigating not only her new body but also her relationship with others on the island—a difficult task after centuries of loneliness. As David and Aycayia grow to love each other, they juggle both the joys and the dangers of life on shore. But a lingering question remains: Will the former mermaid be able to escape her curse? Taking on many points of view, this mythical adventure tells the story of one woman’s return to land, her healing, and her survival.

By the author of The Mermaid of Black Conch, a mesmerizing tale of a father and daughter’s sailing adventure from Trinidad to the Galapagos Islands, winner of the 2013 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature and finalist for the 2014 Orion Book Award Monique Roffey, vibrant new voice in Caribbean fiction and author of the Costa Book of Year Award-winning The Mermaid of Black Conch and Orange Prize finalist The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, returns with Archipelago, a new novel that is a journey of redemption, healing, and hope in the wake of devastating loss. When a flood destroys Gavin Weald’s home in Trinidad and rips his family apart, life as he knows it will never be the same. A year later he returns to his house and tries to start over, but when the rainy season arrives, his daughter’s nightmares about the torrents make life there unbearable. So father and daughter—and their dog—embark upon a voyage to make peace with the waters. Their journey takes them far from their Caribbean island home, as they sail through archipelagos, encounter the grandeur of the sea, and meet with the challenges and surprises of the natural world.

Author of The Mermaid of Black Conch, Rathbone Folio Prize 2021 longlisted, Winner of the Costa Best Novel Award 2020 & Winner of the Costa Book of the Year 2020 When George and Sabine Harwood arrive in Trinidad from England George instantly takes to their new life, but Sabine feels isolated, heat-fatigued, and ill at ease with the racial segregation and the imminent dawning of a new era. Her only solace is her growing fixation with Eric Williams, the charismatic leader of Trinidad's new national party, to whom she pours out all her hopes and fears for the future in letters that she never brings herself to send. As the years progress, George and Sabine's marriage endures for better or worse. When George discovers Sabine's cache of letters, he realises just how many secrets she's kept from him - and he from her - over the decades. And he is seized by an urgent, desperate need to prove his love for her, with tragic consequences…

Author of The Mermaid of Black Conch, Rathbone Folio Prize 2021 longlisted, Winner of the Costa Best Novel Award 2020 & Winner of the Costa Book of the Year 2020 The City of Silk is restless, its people suffering in the grip of corruption. Then, one hot July evening, The Leader gathers his followers, a brotherhood of half-trained men and boys, and storms the House of Power. Together they intend to take back what they believe is rightfully theirs. Caught up in the mayhem is quiet, scholarly Ashes. He had been inspired by The Leader's charisma, but now that words have turned to action he's not so sure about this insurrection. And trapped with the rebel boy soldiers is government minister Aspasia Garland. The mother of a son the same age as the teenage gunmen, she sees much of her child in these boys with guns. As the siege continues, the city holds its breath. For what happens over the next six days will change the small island's future forever… Praise for House of Ashes: 'The kind of Caribbean fiction Gabriel Garcia Marquez once wrote about - a vividness of imagination which is at once so terrible, so beautiful and so compelling that it shows you exactly how things are' Kei Miller 'Roffey's writing is raw and visceral and she thrusts her readers headlong into the middle of the action, her pen as powerful as the butts of guns shoved in her hostages' backs' Observer 'Goes to the heart of questions of political temptation and folly; it grips from beginning to end' Sunday Telegraph 'Gripping' The Times 'Absorbing' Independent 'Vivid' Guardian 'Powerful' Observer ‘Monique Roffey is a unique talent and most daring and versatile of writers' Bernardine Evaristo

Monique Roffey had found her soulmate. But then the love affair she had always longed for came to a sudden and heartbreaking end. Devastated, Monique felt that she could never love again. But as time went on, she began to ask questions. Does ruling out love have to mean ruling out sex? Can you have great sex without love? And, conversely, can a great love survive without sex? This is an eye-opening, inspiring story of one woman's quest to heal a broken heart and to find her own answers to some powerful and resonant questions. It takes her from the personal ads to a libertine's resort in the south of France to tantra workshops and beyond -- until she finds that she might just be able to love again, after all…

Behind the spectacle, there are always secrets. Unruly crowds descend on Crillick’s Variety Theatre. The young, mixed-race actress Zillah is headlining tonight as “The Great Amazonia, a Savage Queen from Darkest Africa.” Zillah, an orphan from the slums of Victorian London, knows that her rise to stardom is her ticket to freedom and, she hopes, to high society. The absurd caricature of her role, along with the leers of the drunken audience, are simply the price she’s willing to pay. Zillah’s late mother made her promise to make a better life for herself, and now she’s on the verge of attaining everything she’s ever dreamed of. But when Crillick’s newest Black actress suddenly disappears, Zillah is haunted by worry—can she risk her own neck to save this troubled stranger? A reckless pursuit of the truth takes Zillah into the underbelly of the city—from gaslit streets to the sumptuous parlors of Mayfair—as she seeks help from both rich admirers of the Great Amazonia and notorious criminals from her past, and where she will quickly find herself torn between two powerful worlds. A stunning and deliciously immersive debut, Lianne Dillsworth’s Theatre of Marvels is a riveting journey across Victorian London and an unforgettable tale of race, identity and a woman’s reclamation of her fate.

FINALIST FOR THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARD FOR NON-FICTION Interrogating our ideas of race through the lens of her own multi-racial identity, critically acclaimed novelist Tessa McWatt turns her eye on herself, her body and this world in a powerful new work of non-fiction. Tessa McWatt has been called Susie Wong, Pocahontas and "black bitch," and has been judged not black enough by people who assume she straightens her hair. Now, through a close examination of her own body--nose, lips, hair, skin, eyes, ass, bones and blood--which holds up a mirror to the way culture reads all bodies, she asks why we persist in thinking in terms of race today when racism is killing us. Her grandmother's family fled southern China for British Guiana after her great uncle was shot in his own dentist's chair during the First Sino-Japanese War. McWatt is made of this woman and more: those who arrived in British Guiana from India as indentured labour and those who were brought from Africa as cargo to work on the sugar plantations; colonists and those whom colonialism displaced. How do you tick a box on a census form or job application when your ancestry is Scottish, English, French, Portuguese, Indian, Amerindian, African and Chinese? How do you finally answer a question first posed to you in grade school: "What are you?" And where do you find a sense of belonging in a supposedly "post-racial" world where shadism, fear of blackness, identity politics and call-out culture vie with each other noisily, relentlessly and still lethally? Shame on Me is a personal and powerful exploration of history and identity, colour and desire from a writer who, having been plagued with confusion about her race all her life, has at last found kinship and solidarity in story.

Author of The Mermaid of Black Conch, Rathbone Folio Prize 2021 longlisted, Winner of the Costa Best Novel Award 2020 & Winner of the Costa Book of the Year 2020 August Chalmin feels the weather like no one else. A large awkward recluse, with bright orange hair and sun-shy eyes, August hides himself away behind the counter of a Shepherd's Bush deli. One winter's day two things change his life forever: his mother's ex-lover Cosmo shambles back into his life, and he discovers a rash on his arm which looks like frost. A rash which is frost. As Cosmo raises questions about August's identity, August finds himself changing with the seasons, in a journey that takes him deep into his past and to the very centre of his soul...