Gloria Campbell is sixteen years old when a single violent act forces her to flee her hometown to forge a new life in Kingston. But while forties’ Jamaica is awash with change, a black woman is still treated as a second-class citizen. When she finds her way to a house of ill repute on the edge of the city, she is enthralled by the glamorous, financially independent women within. It is here that dreams of social change are instilled in her, and she must choose between the life she has made for herself and the one that might be.
Alive with the energy of a country at a crossroads, this is a story of love in many forms, and of one girl’s evolution from a frightened teenager on the run to a woman fully possessed of her own power.
‘Written in the gentle, hypnotic patois and encompassing the birth pangs of Jamaican independence, this is a highly evocative portrait of a country in transition, and of one woman’s search for self-awareness and self-respect’ Mail on Sunday
‘A brilliant, observant read’ Yorkshire Post
‘Gritty and also funny and very real’ Monique Roffey, author of The White Woman on the Green Bicycle