Fay Wong is a woman caught between worlds. Her father is a Chinese immigrant who conjured a fortune out of nothing; her African heritage mother grew up on a plantation and now reigns over their mansion in Lady Musgrave Road.

But the Chinatown haunts where her father spends his time are out of bounds to Fay, and the airy rooms of Lady Musgrave Road are filled with her mother’s long kept secrets and uncontrollable rages – rages against which Fay rebels as she grows from a girl into a beautiful, headstrong woman.

For hers is a country where even the smallest difference in skin colour can mark the boundary between the promise of a future and the burden of the past, where the struggle for power is played out not only in government buildings, but also on the manicured lawns of the schools for Kingston’s elite.

As she tries to escape the restraints of her privileged upbringing, striving for independence in a homeland that is trying to do the same, Fay’s eyes are opened to a Jamaica she was never meant to see. And when her mother decides that she must marry the racketeer Yang Pao, she finds herself on a journey that leads to sacrifice and profound betrayals.

Published: Bloomsbury 2016
Bloomsbury UK