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Passiontide
Four women spark a revolution on a Caribbean island – the electrifying new novel from the Costa-winning author of The Mermaid of Black Conch.
Early one morning, at the close of St Colibri’s carnival, a young female steel pan player is found dead beneath a cannonball tree. It is a discovery that will transform the lives of everyone on this small island...
Fiercely alive, Passiontide is a novel of women daring to imagine a different world. It confirms Monique Roffey as one of our most spellbinding storytellers.
Early one morning, at the close of St Colibri’s carnival, a young female steel pan player is found dead beneath a cannonball tree. It is a discovery that will transform the lives of everyone on this small island...
Fiercely alive, Passiontide is a novel of women daring to imagine a different world. It confirms Monique Roffey as one of our most spellbinding storytellers.
354 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 27, 2024
58 people are currently reading
5513 people want to read
About the author
Monique Roffey
14 books451 followersMonique Roffey, FRSL, is an award winning British-Trinidadian writer. Her most recent novel, Passiontide, (Harvill, 2024), a crime thriller and protest novel, was a finalist for the prestigious US Caricon Award.
The Mermaid of Black Conch (Peepal Tree Press/Vintage) won the Costa Book of the Year Award, 2020 and was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, 2020, the Rathbones/Folio Award 2021, and the Republic of Consciousness Award. Her other novels have been shortlisted for The Orange Prize, Costa Novel Award, Encore and Orion Awards. In 2013, Archipelago won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. She is Professor of Contemporary Fiction at Manchester Metropolitan University.
The Mermaid of Black Conch (Peepal Tree Press/Vintage) won the Costa Book of the Year Award, 2020 and was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, 2020, the Rathbones/Folio Award 2021, and the Republic of Consciousness Award. Her other novels have been shortlisted for The Orange Prize, Costa Novel Award, Encore and Orion Awards. In 2013, Archipelago won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. She is Professor of Contemporary Fiction at Manchester Metropolitan University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 118 reviews
August 11, 2024
In fact... what you are saying is that is us, we women who need to make sure men don't... rape us?
By turns exhilarating and bleak, this is an explosive story of what happens on a small Caribbean island when enough women stand up and say no: no to patriarchy, no to misogyny, no to abuse, domestic violence and the global epidemic of femicide.
I don't want to say too much about the plot as readers deserve to encounter the story for themselves but I appreciated the way this taps into a wider global feminist concern while keeping the specifics tied to the Caribbean location. So much about the women's activism is aligned to the history of the island and its mix of races, ethnicities, faiths and religions. The music of the steel band is the soundtrack, and Roffey captures the cadences of speech beautifully. Importantly, the women unite across all categories: age, class, education, sexual identities, professions, health and bodily abilities, levels of political engagement. This also takes careful account of Caribbean history and the specific sensitivities spawned by centuries of colonisation, slavery and exploitation - and how that history might inflect constructions of masculinity, the family and the ever-presence of violence.
All of which makes this sound earnest - actually, it's a blast, with sharp, smart humour, and a truly stand-up-and-cheer feel about some of the scenes. The 'still not asking for it' scene had me snorting out loud! And there is at least one gorgeous, complicated love story.
But this is no fairy tale: for all the triumph of the women's rebellion, we all know change - real, deep, sustained change - is no easy, overnight thing: misogyny is deep and complex, there is too much at stake and very few people give up power knowingly and voluntarily. And Roffey's interesting afterword comments on how real life events hardened the ending.
Nevertheless, this is an all-in, passionate book, with fierce heroines and a bold, colourful trajectory - it's adult enough to keep things realistic, but it offers up a glorious vision at its heart - I loved it!
Many thanks to Random House, Vintage for an ARC via NetGalley
July 9, 2024
On the Christian calendar, “Passiontide” is the last two weeks of Lent, commemorating the suffering of Christ. If you read this book, you’ll understand why the author chose the name for her book, which looks at the lifelong suffering of women at the hands of men. Although it’s a work of fiction, her Author’s Note states it was inspired by a tragedy on Ash Wednesday 2016 and the events that followed. The body of a steel pan player, Asami Nagakiya, was found dead under a cannonball tree in Port of Spain, Trinidad. And coincidentally, as the author was finishing this book in May 2023, another woman was found dead in Port of Spain, half naked and very close to that same tree. Gabriella Rafael, a mother of five, had been raped and strangled. According to NGO Womankind Worldwide, 81,000 women and girls are killed each year; the UN says 45,000 of them die at the hands of an intimate partner or family member. Femicide is a global problem.
Very early in the book, a bit of inner dialogue jumped out at me. The town’s Police Inspector thought to himself,
5 “There’s-no-limit-to-what-women-can-accomplish” stars⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Very early in the book, a bit of inner dialogue jumped out at me. The town’s Police Inspector thought to himself,
“Men beat and killed their wives. Women went missing, end up found dead. Just the way of things.”This thought aptly described the thinking of the majority of the island’s residents—the men, for certain, but many of the women were resigned to it, as well. Local forward-thinking women would have a difficult task ahead, trying to change these primitive ideas but, try they did, and they actually found a measure of success! The story of how they went about making change on their island home is quite remarkable. I highly recommend this book by Costa Award-winning author, Monique Roffey. I hope you’ll consider reading it.
5 “There’s-no-limit-to-what-women-can-accomplish” stars⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
July 28, 2024
Engaging, current and layered
In Monqiue Roffery’s Passiontide we are taken to the fictional island of St. Colibri on Ash Wednesday. Carnival is over and after the revelry and bacchanal the body of a tourist is found. Sora Tanaka is a steel pan musician whose been visting the island every year for the Carnival celebrations, this year would be her last alive. She was brutally murdered while still wearing her costume, this shifts the island of St. Colibri.
There is an out cry for the protection of women on the island. Sora is not the first woman to be brutally murdered on the island but with her being a tourist the international community is paying attention which puts pressure on the Police, Politicians and all the local activist for women’s rights. Will it take the death of Sora Tanaka for St. Colibri to finally come to terms with the rampant femicide?
This was a difficult book to read because it was based on the true story of a Japanese woman, Asami Nagakiya who was found murdered in the Queen’s Park Savannah. Trinidad and Tobago have a very big problem of domestic abuse and femicide so it was hard reading this, but necessary. The ending was as expected because as much as we want change, will there every come a day when women are considered equal?
In Monqiue Roffery’s Passiontide we are taken to the fictional island of St. Colibri on Ash Wednesday. Carnival is over and after the revelry and bacchanal the body of a tourist is found. Sora Tanaka is a steel pan musician whose been visting the island every year for the Carnival celebrations, this year would be her last alive. She was brutally murdered while still wearing her costume, this shifts the island of St. Colibri.
There is an out cry for the protection of women on the island. Sora is not the first woman to be brutally murdered on the island but with her being a tourist the international community is paying attention which puts pressure on the Police, Politicians and all the local activist for women’s rights. Will it take the death of Sora Tanaka for St. Colibri to finally come to terms with the rampant femicide?
This was a difficult book to read because it was based on the true story of a Japanese woman, Asami Nagakiya who was found murdered in the Queen’s Park Savannah. Trinidad and Tobago have a very big problem of domestic abuse and femicide so it was hard reading this, but necessary. The ending was as expected because as much as we want change, will there every come a day when women are considered equal?
May 9, 2024
Truth was, they just didn’t know how many women were dead from, what? Greed? Craving? In the Caribbean, everybody exhausted. Like the wheel of trauma went round and round, over several centuries. Millions of First Peoples genocided, millions of Africans enslaved, mass monoculture under a plantation system, heinous mass torture, enforced Christianity, and European language, and culture, indentured Indians, and inside of this, unknowable numbers of women raped and killed. Sora Tanaka was bitten on her neck, strangled to death.
Passiontide is the latest novel from Monique Roffey after the stunning The Mermaid of Black Conch, deservedly the most heralded English language novel of 2020.
Set on the ficticious St Colibri - Black Conch features briefly here as a sister island, the Tobago to St Colibri's Trinidad - this is a more overtly political novel, taking its tragic inspiration from a real-life event: In February 2016, on Ash Wednesday, the body of steel pan player Asami Nagakiya was found dead under a cannonball tree in Port of Spain, Trinidad, as Roffey explans in an afterword,
Passiontide is set over the Lent period (hence the novel's name, Passiontide the Sunday 2 weeks before Easter) and opens with a very similar incident. On Ash Wednesday, as workers clear away the aftermath of Carnival, they discovered the body of a woman, eventually identified as Japanese pan player Sora Tanaka, under a cannonball tree, victim of a savage murder.
A group of local women, led by a local journalist, the leader of a sex worker's collective and an activist, come together to protest the death, and violence against women in general, in part inspired by the tactics of the Occupy protestors:
She gazed around. Fat, thin, old, young, straight, queer, brown, black and, yes, even some white women had joined them. Sex workers, mothers, single mothers, friends. The powers that be saw them as nobodies. Freaks. This, indeed, was the best they could muster, in a city of half a million. But the Buddha, Jesus, alluh dem had started a revolution with less disciples. A handful of press had gathered too. Some were snapping pictures.
Their initially modest protest snowballs as many women across the community join in, including the Prime Minister's wife, in an increasingly intersectional campaign:
And so, on the fourth Sunday of Lent, thousands of women, their children left behind in the crèche, marched back to the cannonball tree where the young pan player from Japan had been murdered, strangled by a stranger, left for dead. Women who were black and brown, African and Carib, Hindu and Creole, old and young, queer and straight, many from working-class backgrounds, but not all, some held large photos of dead or missing local women. Many held placards and new hashtag signs; #IMSCAREDTOO, #FEMICIDEMUSTSTOP; in these numbers, they were now impossible to ignore. Always the symbol of the cannonball tree held aloft.
The PM attempts to push-back, arguing that their feminism is a white-Western import which detracts from the true enemy:
Feminism is not something that comes from a colonised space. It was invented by white women in America and Europe, imposed on us; both of these places colonise us. Their feminism has nothing to do with us here in St Colibri. We, as an island state, are signatories to the UN’s CEDAW Convention, which bans all discrimination against women. We take this seriously. We, your men, black men, are good men. We are from an oppressed people. Let us never forget this. And we are not your enemy. We are your brothers and friends and husbands. We share an enemy, our ex-colonisers, and this, this bobol with “femicide” and all of this – tying yourselves to railings, playing dead – nah, this is clouding the real issue we should be setting ourselves. Which is to take the issue of reparations to the highest court in the world, The Hague, and demand compensation for five hundred years of slavery. Allayou, while I understand have a point, allayou is wrong, overall. You are, in fact, missing the point. We, black men, we are oppressed; we support you. You, women of this island should support us too, and join us in this shared struggle.
but this backfires badly, not least as the main opposition to the women comes from the very forces he claims to be against, and even he eventually sees the way the political tides are flowing.
Passiontide lacks the mythical inventiveness of The Mermaid of Black Conch and the intersectional, and successful, nature of the protests can seem a little idealised, although Roffey reminds us in her afterword that the #lifeinleggings and #leaveshealone campaigns in the Carribean in 2016-17 pre-dated the global #metoo movement. But what is lacks in myth it makes up for in passion, and I hope the Women's Prize and Booker will rectify their bizarre lack of acknowledgment of Roffey's previous work.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
Passiontide is the latest novel from Monique Roffey after the stunning The Mermaid of Black Conch, deservedly the most heralded English language novel of 2020.
Set on the ficticious St Colibri - Black Conch features briefly here as a sister island, the Tobago to St Colibri's Trinidad - this is a more overtly political novel, taking its tragic inspiration from a real-life event: In February 2016, on Ash Wednesday, the body of steel pan player Asami Nagakiya was found dead under a cannonball tree in Port of Spain, Trinidad, as Roffey explans in an afterword,
Passiontide is set over the Lent period (hence the novel's name, Passiontide the Sunday 2 weeks before Easter) and opens with a very similar incident. On Ash Wednesday, as workers clear away the aftermath of Carnival, they discovered the body of a woman, eventually identified as Japanese pan player Sora Tanaka, under a cannonball tree, victim of a savage murder.
A group of local women, led by a local journalist, the leader of a sex worker's collective and an activist, come together to protest the death, and violence against women in general, in part inspired by the tactics of the Occupy protestors:
She gazed around. Fat, thin, old, young, straight, queer, brown, black and, yes, even some white women had joined them. Sex workers, mothers, single mothers, friends. The powers that be saw them as nobodies. Freaks. This, indeed, was the best they could muster, in a city of half a million. But the Buddha, Jesus, alluh dem had started a revolution with less disciples. A handful of press had gathered too. Some were snapping pictures.
Their initially modest protest snowballs as many women across the community join in, including the Prime Minister's wife, in an increasingly intersectional campaign:
And so, on the fourth Sunday of Lent, thousands of women, their children left behind in the crèche, marched back to the cannonball tree where the young pan player from Japan had been murdered, strangled by a stranger, left for dead. Women who were black and brown, African and Carib, Hindu and Creole, old and young, queer and straight, many from working-class backgrounds, but not all, some held large photos of dead or missing local women. Many held placards and new hashtag signs; #IMSCAREDTOO, #FEMICIDEMUSTSTOP; in these numbers, they were now impossible to ignore. Always the symbol of the cannonball tree held aloft.
The PM attempts to push-back, arguing that their feminism is a white-Western import which detracts from the true enemy:
Feminism is not something that comes from a colonised space. It was invented by white women in America and Europe, imposed on us; both of these places colonise us. Their feminism has nothing to do with us here in St Colibri. We, as an island state, are signatories to the UN’s CEDAW Convention, which bans all discrimination against women. We take this seriously. We, your men, black men, are good men. We are from an oppressed people. Let us never forget this. And we are not your enemy. We are your brothers and friends and husbands. We share an enemy, our ex-colonisers, and this, this bobol with “femicide” and all of this – tying yourselves to railings, playing dead – nah, this is clouding the real issue we should be setting ourselves. Which is to take the issue of reparations to the highest court in the world, The Hague, and demand compensation for five hundred years of slavery. Allayou, while I understand have a point, allayou is wrong, overall. You are, in fact, missing the point. We, black men, we are oppressed; we support you. You, women of this island should support us too, and join us in this shared struggle.
but this backfires badly, not least as the main opposition to the women comes from the very forces he claims to be against, and even he eventually sees the way the political tides are flowing.
Passiontide lacks the mythical inventiveness of The Mermaid of Black Conch and the intersectional, and successful, nature of the protests can seem a little idealised, although Roffey reminds us in her afterword that the #lifeinleggings and #leaveshealone campaigns in the Carribean in 2016-17 pre-dated the global #metoo movement. But what is lacks in myth it makes up for in passion, and I hope the Women's Prize and Booker will rectify their bizarre lack of acknowledgment of Roffey's previous work.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
August 4, 2024
3,5
Mixed but mostly positive feelings about this novel that follows the rise of a women-led occupy movement on a Caribbean island.
On the positive side:
- It covers the very important and in most countries underexposed topic of violence against women and femicide.
- It reads very well, there is good humour too , I had a good time.
- There are some unforgettable characters
But:
- The political message is laid on very thickly for my taste. It is more of a pamphlet, but then a very long one. Although inspired by true events in Trinidad, I believe the book also/mainly wants to be a call to action for women of different backgrounds to come together and get organized to push the issue higher on the political agenda.
- There are many repetitions, especially the constant reminder of the importance of social media (we know...).
- I found it lacked some depth or development - it basically all went in the same direction from about 10% in, with some minor improvement in the closing pages.
It's very different from the Mermaid of Black Conch (although the island of Black Conch is briefly referred in Passiontide) - which I enjoyed more. This is less a fairytale and more straightforward.
Mixed but mostly positive feelings about this novel that follows the rise of a women-led occupy movement on a Caribbean island.
On the positive side:
- It covers the very important and in most countries underexposed topic of violence against women and femicide.
- It reads very well, there is good humour too , I had a good time.
- There are some unforgettable characters
But:
- The political message is laid on very thickly for my taste. It is more of a pamphlet, but then a very long one. Although inspired by true events in Trinidad, I believe the book also/mainly wants to be a call to action for women of different backgrounds to come together and get organized to push the issue higher on the political agenda.
- There are many repetitions, especially the constant reminder of the importance of social media (we know...).
- I found it lacked some depth or development - it basically all went in the same direction from about 10% in, with some minor improvement in the closing pages.
It's very different from the Mermaid of Black Conch (although the island of Black Conch is briefly referred in Passiontide) - which I enjoyed more. This is less a fairytale and more straightforward.
August 2, 2024
Issue based fiction with something very important to say but in my opinion at the expense of plot. Too slow, too many characters I couldn't engage with and it felt repetitive.
I would have preferred a book examining the themes of misogyny and colonialism in the Caribbean with more subtly and nuance allowing the story to speak more for itself.
DNFd at p136
I would have preferred a book examining the themes of misogyny and colonialism in the Caribbean with more subtly and nuance allowing the story to speak more for itself.
DNFd at p136
March 11, 2024
Cartwheeling into the eternal return of the same. I couldn't help but think of Bolaño's 2666, and how where he goes metaphysical, Roffey goes intersectional. Roffey's approach takes us along all the axes - gender, class, sexual, racial - and keeps pushing. Most of the time I was annoyed by her almost cartoonish presentation of intersectional politics, always insisting on different women taking part in this or that action (and we get a full set of references from ACT UP's die-ins to Occupy), naming names, stringing letters together as if reading from some NGO manual. Not that it isn't done with a lot of flair, but irony can only go so far. But then the ending that slaps. And I can't help but wonder - what can be done beyond the now familiar (and obviously ineffective) identity politics? How to not only temporarily interrupt the eternal return of the same, but to take apart the whole machine and all its cogs? I've got my own ideas, but the novel leaves us with the question.
November 15, 2024
aaaahh so disappointing!!!! i was soooo excited for a new monique roffey but this one didn’t work for me. i wish it was more nuanced on the themes it explored, more emotional, more character driven and less plot.
the scenes of the women’s occupy in the square dragged on forever and nothing satisfying came from the murder investigation side plot either
the scenes of the women’s occupy in the square dragged on forever and nothing satisfying came from the murder investigation side plot either
July 24, 2024
PASSIONTIDE by Monique Roffey
Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for the ARC ebook to read.
The title, Passiontide, is the last two weeks of Lent. On the small tropical island of St. Colibri, carnival is just over and Sora Tanaka, a young Japanese steel-pan player is found brutally murdered lying under a cannonball tree. Because the island is known for women being murdered, there is a special unit within the police called OMWEN, the Office for Murdered Women. There have been five hundred women on the island killed. It took a foreign woman to be killed before an inept group consisting of a police inspector and local government cared to have the person found; only because of it looking bad for tourism.
Sora’s death has finally made women say, “enough is enough” and four women from various walks of life, join forces and find new ways to help one another and soon more and more women join in this rebellion. Sora’s voice of the dead, is used throughout the novel. Femicide is the topic in, Passiontide. Raffey starts this novel off with the impression of a detective story; becoming apparent that “state-approved, and state-sanctioned misogyny” plays out with the prime minister, mayor, inspector, and almost all the male characters.
Overall I enjoyed this book. There is an unfamiliar (to me) island lexicon that hampered my reading till I became more familiar with it. I believe it is the Trinidadian English that gives the narrative authenticity. I enjoyed the larger-than-life characters Roffey created. I look forward to seeing what Monique Roffey has next for us.
Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for the ARC ebook to read.
The title, Passiontide, is the last two weeks of Lent. On the small tropical island of St. Colibri, carnival is just over and Sora Tanaka, a young Japanese steel-pan player is found brutally murdered lying under a cannonball tree. Because the island is known for women being murdered, there is a special unit within the police called OMWEN, the Office for Murdered Women. There have been five hundred women on the island killed. It took a foreign woman to be killed before an inept group consisting of a police inspector and local government cared to have the person found; only because of it looking bad for tourism.
Sora’s death has finally made women say, “enough is enough” and four women from various walks of life, join forces and find new ways to help one another and soon more and more women join in this rebellion. Sora’s voice of the dead, is used throughout the novel. Femicide is the topic in, Passiontide. Raffey starts this novel off with the impression of a detective story; becoming apparent that “state-approved, and state-sanctioned misogyny” plays out with the prime minister, mayor, inspector, and almost all the male characters.
Overall I enjoyed this book. There is an unfamiliar (to me) island lexicon that hampered my reading till I became more familiar with it. I believe it is the Trinidadian English that gives the narrative authenticity. I enjoyed the larger-than-life characters Roffey created. I look forward to seeing what Monique Roffey has next for us.
September 27, 2024
[ 3.5/5 stars ]
Fictional island of St. Colibri - a foreign woman is brutally murdered under the cannonball tree after Carnival. However this female musician is far from the first woman to be killed, triggering a chain of events which is the beginning of something much larger.
Longtime femicide draws together four (apparently) unrelated women and the narrative embodies a wheel of trauma that one cannot overlook. As much as everybody is tired and the women are also tired, there is a feminine rage (and rightfully so!) that fights against the misogyny and colonialism built into the various systems of the society. Alternating between POVs (the deceased and current investigation), Roffey provides a broad view of the resistant people who yearn for a chance to speak truth to power.
With incisive prose, the pages are then flooded by rebellious spirits whose political commitment make things out of order, stirring up different reactions. Inspired by true events, while I appreciate the exposition of violence against women, the political message can feel repetitive and the author's intention could have been better delivered if this book were 100 pages shorter.
At its core, PASSIONTIDE is about change. Challenging and passionate, I would recommend this book for its relevance.
- note: compared to 'The Mermaid of Black Conch' (which I enjoyed), PASSIONTIDE has less magical realism and it's more current
[ I received a complimentary copy from the publisher - Knopf publishing . All thoughts are my own ]
Fictional island of St. Colibri - a foreign woman is brutally murdered under the cannonball tree after Carnival. However this female musician is far from the first woman to be killed, triggering a chain of events which is the beginning of something much larger.
Longtime femicide draws together four (apparently) unrelated women and the narrative embodies a wheel of trauma that one cannot overlook. As much as everybody is tired and the women are also tired, there is a feminine rage (and rightfully so!) that fights against the misogyny and colonialism built into the various systems of the society. Alternating between POVs (the deceased and current investigation), Roffey provides a broad view of the resistant people who yearn for a chance to speak truth to power.
With incisive prose, the pages are then flooded by rebellious spirits whose political commitment make things out of order, stirring up different reactions. Inspired by true events, while I appreciate the exposition of violence against women, the political message can feel repetitive and the author's intention could have been better delivered if this book were 100 pages shorter.
At its core, PASSIONTIDE is about change. Challenging and passionate, I would recommend this book for its relevance.
- note: compared to 'The Mermaid of Black Conch' (which I enjoyed), PASSIONTIDE has less magical realism and it's more current
[ I received a complimentary copy from the publisher - Knopf publishing . All thoughts are my own ]
September 17, 2025
My third Monique Roffey book and wow do her stories make me feel....
This one looks at femicide, misogyny and the power of a group of women and what they can achieve. Very powerful, and sadly based on some fact...
This one looks at femicide, misogyny and the power of a group of women and what they can achieve. Very powerful, and sadly based on some fact...
July 20, 2024
4.5
FEMICIDE
for the audible the book is in transit. Excellent narration by three actors who speak patois fluently. A very challenging listen and I will definitely listen again as I kept having to rewind. It is a radical feminist work from the POV of the local women. I think this would be suitable for a small group of deep thinking readers with broad minded views. A local bookshop owner is championing it, so hopefully Monique will talk there.
I’ve now read the book and same score. Readers who aren’t used to patois may prefer the audible. Good to have references back to ‘black conch’ and it reminded me of ‘this one sky day’ at times.
FEMICIDE
for the audible the book is in transit. Excellent narration by three actors who speak patois fluently. A very challenging listen and I will definitely listen again as I kept having to rewind. It is a radical feminist work from the POV of the local women. I think this would be suitable for a small group of deep thinking readers with broad minded views. A local bookshop owner is championing it, so hopefully Monique will talk there.
I’ve now read the book and same score. Readers who aren’t used to patois may prefer the audible. Good to have references back to ‘black conch’ and it reminded me of ‘this one sky day’ at times.
September 10, 2024
Easily one of my favorite reads of 2024. So many characters to love and narratives that need to be told!
When Japanese pan player Sora Tanaka is murdered at the end of the Carnival celebration on the Caribbean island St. Colibri, it is the last straw for the women of the island. They are absolutely fed up with women dying at the hands of men and their government and law enforcement doing nothing about it.
This murder sparks a national protest, which draws international attention. What started as a few dozen women camping out turns into hundreds of women marching, protesting, and participating in a sex strike.
Told from the perspectives of feminist leaders, sex workers, the prime minister and his wife, the cop in charge of the investigation -- you can see how differently each one reacts to the movement and the repercussions. It will inspire and infuriate you at the same time!
Thank you to Netgalley & the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!
When Japanese pan player Sora Tanaka is murdered at the end of the Carnival celebration on the Caribbean island St. Colibri, it is the last straw for the women of the island. They are absolutely fed up with women dying at the hands of men and their government and law enforcement doing nothing about it.
This murder sparks a national protest, which draws international attention. What started as a few dozen women camping out turns into hundreds of women marching, protesting, and participating in a sex strike.
Told from the perspectives of feminist leaders, sex workers, the prime minister and his wife, the cop in charge of the investigation -- you can see how differently each one reacts to the movement and the repercussions. It will inspire and infuriate you at the same time!
Thank you to Netgalley & the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!
January 26, 2025
Fascinating and somewhat realistic take on femicide, systemic misogyny, and the societal inequalities blasted on women.
Made me laugh, made me angry, made me sad.
It’s a long, long, long way until we reach equilibrium.
Made me laugh, made me angry, made me sad.
It’s a long, long, long way until we reach equilibrium.
September 13, 2024
A book that will enrage and ignite you into action!
“Women are hated here. Openly. Man can kill a woman anytime and know he will never face a courtroom. Man does beat their woman. Man does kill his woman too. Women go missing.”
For me, Passiontide felt like a changing of tides. You walk up to its waters, and you're immediately taken into a story, and as its tide gets higher, you realize you're sunk—fully immersed. You become part of the story, connecting with the characters in profound ways. Each character hits you like a new wave, with every part of the revolution crashing over you with force. Passiontide is both a dream and a harsh reality. It’s not only a book that inspires and demands community, support, and uprising, but also one that challenges complicity and conformity, showing how everyone plays a role—whether they challenge an unjust system or keep it alive.
When the story kicks off, we’re thrown into a world that feels too close to home. A world in which women can be hurt, abused, killed, and taken without consequence. When another woman is found publicly displayed after being murdered at the hands of a man, the book asks the questions: How does this keep happening? and When will it stop? From there, we follow a small island town as it begins to erupt. The women have had enough—enough of being taken for granted, enough of being ignored, and enough of being killed. What starts as a small act of achieving justice becomes a powerful statement of resilience, change, and unity.
This book has many strengths! One of the biggest is the environment it immerses you in—not only through its diverse and inclusive cultural representation, religious components, and vivid scenes, but also through its characters. Told through multiple points of view, we experience these characters in layers that provide depth and understanding. Though vastly different, every character feels intrinsically connected. Characters like Errol and Brian, who may seem distant in social stature, are both complicit in their beliefs and exemplify some of the scariest aspects of misogyny and oppression—how men in power can hurt us by not listening to us, and how even the lowest of men can be protected from the consequences of their atrocities.
Characters like Gigi and Daisy showcase the kind of women we need to come together. While one is a sex worker and the other a housewife, this story presents that these titles are never too far apart—through shared desires, grief, and purpose. Every character sparks discussion and, at times, controversy, making it no surprise that each feels like someone you can reach out and touch. Some parts of this book will definitely be triggering as the story is inspired by true events, but that just makes the impact even stronger.
So much appreciation to AAKnopf for this gifted copy and Monique Raffey for the captivating story.
“Women are hated here. Openly. Man can kill a woman anytime and know he will never face a courtroom. Man does beat their woman. Man does kill his woman too. Women go missing.”
For me, Passiontide felt like a changing of tides. You walk up to its waters, and you're immediately taken into a story, and as its tide gets higher, you realize you're sunk—fully immersed. You become part of the story, connecting with the characters in profound ways. Each character hits you like a new wave, with every part of the revolution crashing over you with force. Passiontide is both a dream and a harsh reality. It’s not only a book that inspires and demands community, support, and uprising, but also one that challenges complicity and conformity, showing how everyone plays a role—whether they challenge an unjust system or keep it alive.
When the story kicks off, we’re thrown into a world that feels too close to home. A world in which women can be hurt, abused, killed, and taken without consequence. When another woman is found publicly displayed after being murdered at the hands of a man, the book asks the questions: How does this keep happening? and When will it stop? From there, we follow a small island town as it begins to erupt. The women have had enough—enough of being taken for granted, enough of being ignored, and enough of being killed. What starts as a small act of achieving justice becomes a powerful statement of resilience, change, and unity.
This book has many strengths! One of the biggest is the environment it immerses you in—not only through its diverse and inclusive cultural representation, religious components, and vivid scenes, but also through its characters. Told through multiple points of view, we experience these characters in layers that provide depth and understanding. Though vastly different, every character feels intrinsically connected. Characters like Errol and Brian, who may seem distant in social stature, are both complicit in their beliefs and exemplify some of the scariest aspects of misogyny and oppression—how men in power can hurt us by not listening to us, and how even the lowest of men can be protected from the consequences of their atrocities.
Characters like Gigi and Daisy showcase the kind of women we need to come together. While one is a sex worker and the other a housewife, this story presents that these titles are never too far apart—through shared desires, grief, and purpose. Every character sparks discussion and, at times, controversy, making it no surprise that each feels like someone you can reach out and touch. Some parts of this book will definitely be triggering as the story is inspired by true events, but that just makes the impact even stronger.
So much appreciation to AAKnopf for this gifted copy and Monique Raffey for the captivating story.
September 15, 2024
It was not until this morning, after finishing the book last night, that I discovered the steel pan music of Asami Nagakiya--the real Japanese woman who was murdered in Trinidad in 2016--that this story fully hit me. I sobbed reading the heartfelt comments from people in both Trinidad and Japan, many saying she is elsewhere, playing pan music in the heavens, or with Buddha.
This is an incredible re-imagining of a tragic murder during Carnival and its aftermath, set on the fictional island of St. Colibri, filled with colorful characters (the best and the worst the island has to offer), feminine rage (rightfully so!), and the beautiful music and culture of the Caribbean.
Opt for the audiobook if you can--the musical interludes add so much to the story, and the trio of narrators do an amazing job.
Thank you to Knopf for providing a gifted copy at my request!
This is an incredible re-imagining of a tragic murder during Carnival and its aftermath, set on the fictional island of St. Colibri, filled with colorful characters (the best and the worst the island has to offer), feminine rage (rightfully so!), and the beautiful music and culture of the Caribbean.
Opt for the audiobook if you can--the musical interludes add so much to the story, and the trio of narrators do an amazing job.
Thank you to Knopf for providing a gifted copy at my request!
July 1, 2024
I started reading Passiontide and was totally hooked from the beginning! I mean, a dead body? Yeah, I'm invested.
And the cast of characters? So interesting! We've got a detective, a journalist, a feminist activist, a leader of a sex worker collective and the president's wife, all with their own unique stories. I was fully tuned in.
The book is set on a fictional Caribbean island, but it's got that authentic Caribbean feel and tackles a major issue: femicide. I loved the social commentary and the fact that it was inspired by a real murder in the Caribbean. The victim even got her own voice.
BUT, the protest storyline started to feel a bit drawn out, and the ending... well, I was left wanting more.
Despite that, I still think it's a book worth reading, especially for the important conversations it sparks about domestic violence and femicide in the region.
June 16, 2025
3.5 stars, rounding up to 4 because I can’t bear having this and some other books I’ve ranked as 3 stars sharing the same number of stars with this one.
I have much to say I think. I can’t figure out the best way to say it. This book feels like a statement of suffering with the hope that it will affect change. On the back of this book, there’s review that likens it to a prayer. The issue is, and I suppose this is true of all prayer, I don’t know who is intended to listen and what power they have to do anything. It is a prayer in the sense that is desperate. It is a prayer in the sense that is fervent, demanding, and yet resigned. It acknowledges that there can be no expectation of response, even as it begs for one. This is the deep sadness that sits at the core of this work.
I may at some point return to this review and write more thoroughly, but I will start with some of the good. It is well written. The characters are believable, the dialect does not make me cringe. The book, reads like it is written by a woman with an intimate understanding of the vast diversity of caribbean women. However, there were moments where it felt as though, despite this, there was a separation, moments where it felt like the author was trying to describe a people she could see and observe through a glass but not touch. I have no real tangible thing I can point to prove this, it’s just a gut feeling. I suspect it probably has to do with being Trinidadian born but British. For example, the distinction between Hindu women vs non Hindu women as opposed to Indian vs Black women is interesting. Perhaps that is how it is in Trinidad? Nevertheless it is an authentic book, just some of it felt off to me.
I have seen this book described as a protest book. In many ways it is. But in others it is also a fantasy. I would love to believe in that kind of solidarity among womenfolk but i have yet to see it happen. Women in the Caribbean suffer at the hands of men so much that it feels bred into the fabric of our society. I have thoughts about intersectionality that I fear I don’t know quite how to articulate. I think that this book is softly making the claim that we as women all feel it when one of us is hurt. We all understand, we are all called to arms. Except we are not. The Black maternal mortality rate in the US has been higher than the white maternal mortality rate for years, yet who champions this cause? Is it all women? Women’s issues in the states increasingly reads to me like “white women’s issues” in that it is only an issue if they are affected. If they are not it is something else— racism, classism, or not an issue at all. There is a lack of acknowledgement in my everyday of what specifically being a woman of color means. We are never these things separate; woman, non-white. We are always them together, and when we are called to express solidarity for a cause (whether that is a feminist or anti racist one) we are called to stand in arms with people who hate us for part of our identity in order to make life easier for them. Revolutionary love, pushing for better for the collective even if our needs are left behind. I don’t know if there will ever be true solidarity as the fictional women of st colibri express, but if I ever see it i know it will move me. Of course the white women’s issue comment isn’t exactly applicable to the setting of this book. It’s just something that’s been on my mind. But make no mistake, it is not a coincidence that it takes a foreign woman to cause uproar.
I had to pause reading this book because of the high profile deaths of women and girls that occurred in Guyana while I was reading this. The author herself in a note says while this book was inspired by a specific murder, another, very similar one happened as she was writing this. Misogyny lurks in the every day— it is incessant and pervasive and it gives its strength to those who want to murder and abuse. What is the path forward? How many more women? I read this book in conjunction with “even I regret the night”, a book of songs written by an indentured Indian immigrant in Guyana. He sings of abuse. This book asks the question of how, men, who understand what it is like to be hurt by racism turn around and deny that misogyny is also a structural issue, built into caribbean communities as a legacy of colonialism. Yet, while it acknowledges the distrust of women to men in their lives, it does not make all men evil or irredeemable.
I don’t know how I ultimately feel about this book. It made my jaw drop and stomach sink twice. But for some reason it felt slow. Went on forever, felt like it kept telling me things I already knew. But I suppose I am a caribbean woman. So that makes sense.
I have much to say I think. I can’t figure out the best way to say it. This book feels like a statement of suffering with the hope that it will affect change. On the back of this book, there’s review that likens it to a prayer. The issue is, and I suppose this is true of all prayer, I don’t know who is intended to listen and what power they have to do anything. It is a prayer in the sense that is desperate. It is a prayer in the sense that is fervent, demanding, and yet resigned. It acknowledges that there can be no expectation of response, even as it begs for one. This is the deep sadness that sits at the core of this work.
I may at some point return to this review and write more thoroughly, but I will start with some of the good. It is well written. The characters are believable, the dialect does not make me cringe. The book, reads like it is written by a woman with an intimate understanding of the vast diversity of caribbean women. However, there were moments where it felt as though, despite this, there was a separation, moments where it felt like the author was trying to describe a people she could see and observe through a glass but not touch. I have no real tangible thing I can point to prove this, it’s just a gut feeling. I suspect it probably has to do with being Trinidadian born but British. For example, the distinction between Hindu women vs non Hindu women as opposed to Indian vs Black women is interesting. Perhaps that is how it is in Trinidad? Nevertheless it is an authentic book, just some of it felt off to me.
I have seen this book described as a protest book. In many ways it is. But in others it is also a fantasy. I would love to believe in that kind of solidarity among womenfolk but i have yet to see it happen. Women in the Caribbean suffer at the hands of men so much that it feels bred into the fabric of our society. I have thoughts about intersectionality that I fear I don’t know quite how to articulate. I think that this book is softly making the claim that we as women all feel it when one of us is hurt. We all understand, we are all called to arms. Except we are not. The Black maternal mortality rate in the US has been higher than the white maternal mortality rate for years, yet who champions this cause? Is it all women? Women’s issues in the states increasingly reads to me like “white women’s issues” in that it is only an issue if they are affected. If they are not it is something else— racism, classism, or not an issue at all. There is a lack of acknowledgement in my everyday of what specifically being a woman of color means. We are never these things separate; woman, non-white. We are always them together, and when we are called to express solidarity for a cause (whether that is a feminist or anti racist one) we are called to stand in arms with people who hate us for part of our identity in order to make life easier for them. Revolutionary love, pushing for better for the collective even if our needs are left behind. I don’t know if there will ever be true solidarity as the fictional women of st colibri express, but if I ever see it i know it will move me. Of course the white women’s issue comment isn’t exactly applicable to the setting of this book. It’s just something that’s been on my mind. But make no mistake, it is not a coincidence that it takes a foreign woman to cause uproar.
I had to pause reading this book because of the high profile deaths of women and girls that occurred in Guyana while I was reading this. The author herself in a note says while this book was inspired by a specific murder, another, very similar one happened as she was writing this. Misogyny lurks in the every day— it is incessant and pervasive and it gives its strength to those who want to murder and abuse. What is the path forward? How many more women? I read this book in conjunction with “even I regret the night”, a book of songs written by an indentured Indian immigrant in Guyana. He sings of abuse. This book asks the question of how, men, who understand what it is like to be hurt by racism turn around and deny that misogyny is also a structural issue, built into caribbean communities as a legacy of colonialism. Yet, while it acknowledges the distrust of women to men in their lives, it does not make all men evil or irredeemable.
I don’t know how I ultimately feel about this book. It made my jaw drop and stomach sink twice. But for some reason it felt slow. Went on forever, felt like it kept telling me things I already knew. But I suppose I am a caribbean woman. So that makes sense.
October 20, 2024
There are 81,000 women and girls killed per year, according to NGO Womankind worldwide. The UN says 45,000 of these die at the hands of an intimate partner or a family member. Femicide is a global problem.
"My sister.....'disappeared.' They found some of her clothes, a yellow skirt and a white blouse, blood on them. No body, ever. We had no body to bury. We never speak about it. No one does. Like she never even existed. Nothing we could say could bring her back, so nothing was ever said."
This book was one hell of a ride. The story is a re-imagining of true events that occurred in the Trinidad & Tobago 2016 carnival season. It is a multi pov story that tells the story of a society where violence against women has permeated its fabric so deeply that it has become commonplace. The murder of a foreigner has now sparked outcry from the local women as they seek to force men in this misogynistic society to see the humanity of womanhood and do something meaningful to protect them. As the saying goes, 'it is never all men, but it is always a man'. As to be expected, the women's movement is initially not supported by the men folk or even many women, but thankfully, the sisterhood eventually unites for the betterment of !!!.
"I mean, I don't wish to upset anyone, but, while this is a horrible crime, and while it is entirely regrettable, and while we must find the killer, I do have to add that ...it is up to women to avoid being molested while carnival is happening."
"I mean,...did she try to fight her attacker off? No. It could easily be that she drank too much, and so she behaved in a certain way. I mean, so many women at carnival time behave and dress in such a lewd and vulgar way, is like a hazard. They askin for this kind of thing to happen."
I know some criticized this book as being a little too on the nose, a little too heavy and direct with the misogyny. But I urge you to re-read the two above quotes and then research the real like speech of the mayor of the city where this even occurred, and tell me if you were to spot a difference. Misogyny and femicide are often handed out overtly and in very obviously harmful ways, so I appreciate the author being so very blatant about it. Let us reserve our delicate sensibilities for other areas.
"Banning sex. Going on a sex strike. Nah. Next, they would be castration men in public. He could see it all. Balls squashed in a vice. Men in the stocks. Paraded through town, hooded, and sitting backwards on donkeys, forced to confess their infidelities. Nah, nah, nah. Infidelity was normal, for Chrissakes." - a man's interpretation and thought process to women protesting their ill treatment and murders by going on a sex strike.
'"The loved " had a blind spot about this. They imagined everybody was. And therefore, all humans had a conscience. But this wasn't the case, a grave and common mistake. " -words of a murder as he stalks vulnerable prey.
"But the real hard question is, how? How could our own men, men who know oppression, do this to us? How they could kill they own women?" - a question that men must ask themselves.
"The problem had been that her ego had never dominated. She'd been so reined in. In service to Errol's ego, to the ego of the nation." -In patriarchal societies, women continue to defer to men's ego, often times to their own detriment.
4.5🌟 rounded up!
"My sister.....'disappeared.' They found some of her clothes, a yellow skirt and a white blouse, blood on them. No body, ever. We had no body to bury. We never speak about it. No one does. Like she never even existed. Nothing we could say could bring her back, so nothing was ever said."
This book was one hell of a ride. The story is a re-imagining of true events that occurred in the Trinidad & Tobago 2016 carnival season. It is a multi pov story that tells the story of a society where violence against women has permeated its fabric so deeply that it has become commonplace. The murder of a foreigner has now sparked outcry from the local women as they seek to force men in this misogynistic society to see the humanity of womanhood and do something meaningful to protect them. As the saying goes, 'it is never all men, but it is always a man'. As to be expected, the women's movement is initially not supported by the men folk or even many women, but thankfully, the sisterhood eventually unites for the betterment of !!!.
"I mean, I don't wish to upset anyone, but, while this is a horrible crime, and while it is entirely regrettable, and while we must find the killer, I do have to add that ...it is up to women to avoid being molested while carnival is happening."
"I mean,...did she try to fight her attacker off? No. It could easily be that she drank too much, and so she behaved in a certain way. I mean, so many women at carnival time behave and dress in such a lewd and vulgar way, is like a hazard. They askin for this kind of thing to happen."
I know some criticized this book as being a little too on the nose, a little too heavy and direct with the misogyny. But I urge you to re-read the two above quotes and then research the real like speech of the mayor of the city where this even occurred, and tell me if you were to spot a difference. Misogyny and femicide are often handed out overtly and in very obviously harmful ways, so I appreciate the author being so very blatant about it. Let us reserve our delicate sensibilities for other areas.
"Banning sex. Going on a sex strike. Nah. Next, they would be castration men in public. He could see it all. Balls squashed in a vice. Men in the stocks. Paraded through town, hooded, and sitting backwards on donkeys, forced to confess their infidelities. Nah, nah, nah. Infidelity was normal, for Chrissakes." - a man's interpretation and thought process to women protesting their ill treatment and murders by going on a sex strike.
'"The loved " had a blind spot about this. They imagined everybody was. And therefore, all humans had a conscience. But this wasn't the case, a grave and common mistake. " -words of a murder as he stalks vulnerable prey.
"But the real hard question is, how? How could our own men, men who know oppression, do this to us? How they could kill they own women?" - a question that men must ask themselves.
"The problem had been that her ego had never dominated. She'd been so reined in. In service to Errol's ego, to the ego of the nation." -In patriarchal societies, women continue to defer to men's ego, often times to their own detriment.
4.5🌟 rounded up!
May 13, 2024
Passiontide begins with the death of a musician on the island of St. Colibri. The plot subverts the crime fiction tropes to instead focus on the societal issue of femicide and the lapses that result in such horrific crimes. Filled with anger, unity and love, Passiontide offers a mosaic view of life on St. Colibri after this tragedy.
Firstly, the writing of Roffey continues to be evocative and layered, perfectly portraying the emotions of all characters realistically. Elements of magical realism remain, providing a voice to the silenced. There is a broad ensemble, spanning different racialised backgrounds, ages, and class that all have enough time on page to create a nuanced portrait.
My main issue with the novel was that I don't believe the ending committed one way or the other. The afterword perfectly explains why this is the case; however, the novel does such a brilliant job of building rage and power through resistance, that I found myself left caught between the two poles this book was working between.
Overall, I would still recommend The Mermaid of Black Conch to new readers of Roffey, but pre-existing readers should absolutely support Roffey's new novel. Thank you to Netgalley for an e-ARC.
Firstly, the writing of Roffey continues to be evocative and layered, perfectly portraying the emotions of all characters realistically. Elements of magical realism remain, providing a voice to the silenced. There is a broad ensemble, spanning different racialised backgrounds, ages, and class that all have enough time on page to create a nuanced portrait.
My main issue with the novel was that I don't believe the ending committed one way or the other. The afterword perfectly explains why this is the case; however, the novel does such a brilliant job of building rage and power through resistance, that I found myself left caught between the two poles this book was working between.
Overall, I would still recommend The Mermaid of Black Conch to new readers of Roffey, but pre-existing readers should absolutely support Roffey's new novel. Thank you to Netgalley for an e-ARC.
June 18, 2025
A foreign woman - a musician who regularly visits the fictional Caribbean island - is murdered on the last night of Carnival. The murder of women is not uncommon on the island ( or anywhere else in the world - the stats on femicide around the globe are staggering) - but the timing, the connection of the woman to local communities, and the backlash against some of the politicians' public statements come together to unite women of all social groups in an ongoing protest against violence against women. International news coverage shows up, a politician's wife speaks up, disparate groups begin working together and what starts as a one night occupation of a public square builds to a multi-week protest during Lent - a period of time when the focus is on Christ's suffering. Roffey captures the energy and dynamics of the social movement and the pacing is good. I'm not sure how I felt about the ending - I think I need to sit with it a bit. Audio version of this was excellent - multiple narrators and you get to hear a bit of the pan music.
June 30, 2024
Passiontide is a feminist fiction based on a fictional Caribbean island St Colibri.
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A Japanese steel pan player is found dead under a tree. The island sees a lot of dead and has become desensitized to Femicide. But with the efforts of a press reporter, a feminist activist, and a sex worker collaborative’s leader, it becomes a national movement. A revolution to stop killing women. Swipe to see the blurb.
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The book can't be explained. It can only be read and experienced. Each page made me angry and sad because it’s not all fiction. Based on a real incident in Trinidad, this book talks about the struggles of women in a society where they are silenced, beaten, and often killed.
Through different characters, the author has provided multiple points of view. Those of a victim, an activist, a police officer, a politician. It's a discourse on gender. It's a take on nationalist movements and how media plays a role in making or breaking them. As well as the importance of having the right support.
It was a hard book to read for me. Full of pain and anger, I had to mix it with other books to keep myself sane. But I really liked reading it. And I am now looking forward to reading the author’s other famous work, “The Mermaid of Black Conch”
The only thing that didn't work for me was the writing with the accent. I am not a huge fan of having grammar and words changed to reflect the local language. It makes it difficult to read and usually takes more time to comprehend, which for a slow reader is even worse.
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It's a powerful book and I would definitely recommend it. Especially if you like reading books about women's emancipation and power struggle.
3.5 🌟
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A Japanese steel pan player is found dead under a tree. The island sees a lot of dead and has become desensitized to Femicide. But with the efforts of a press reporter, a feminist activist, and a sex worker collaborative’s leader, it becomes a national movement. A revolution to stop killing women. Swipe to see the blurb.
🍃🍃🍃
The book can't be explained. It can only be read and experienced. Each page made me angry and sad because it’s not all fiction. Based on a real incident in Trinidad, this book talks about the struggles of women in a society where they are silenced, beaten, and often killed.
Through different characters, the author has provided multiple points of view. Those of a victim, an activist, a police officer, a politician. It's a discourse on gender. It's a take on nationalist movements and how media plays a role in making or breaking them. As well as the importance of having the right support.
It was a hard book to read for me. Full of pain and anger, I had to mix it with other books to keep myself sane. But I really liked reading it. And I am now looking forward to reading the author’s other famous work, “The Mermaid of Black Conch”
The only thing that didn't work for me was the writing with the accent. I am not a huge fan of having grammar and words changed to reflect the local language. It makes it difficult to read and usually takes more time to comprehend, which for a slow reader is even worse.
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It's a powerful book and I would definitely recommend it. Especially if you like reading books about women's emancipation and power struggle.
3.5 🌟
September 23, 2024
A feminist movement is set in motion by the death of a woman in the Caribbean. As the women protest femicide throughout Lent, the movement grows and they feel things start to shift - but in the end, does anything really change?
Told through the eyes of the movement’s leaders, four women from different walks of life, and the men in their lives, this is a powerful, heartbreaking, sometimes funny, and often relatable tale of women fighting back in a world that treats them as disposable. We hear from Tara, the activist; Sharleen, the journalist; Gigi, the prostitute; and Daisy, the Prime Minister’s wife. An unlikely coalition, these women band together to form a lasting force for change.
Despite the heavy subject matter, I enjoyed reading this, and it drew me in. The writing style is unique, with a smattering of Caribbean slang and nuance that made me slow down to really take it all in.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy, in exchange for an honest review.
Told through the eyes of the movement’s leaders, four women from different walks of life, and the men in their lives, this is a powerful, heartbreaking, sometimes funny, and often relatable tale of women fighting back in a world that treats them as disposable. We hear from Tara, the activist; Sharleen, the journalist; Gigi, the prostitute; and Daisy, the Prime Minister’s wife. An unlikely coalition, these women band together to form a lasting force for change.
Despite the heavy subject matter, I enjoyed reading this, and it drew me in. The writing style is unique, with a smattering of Caribbean slang and nuance that made me slow down to really take it all in.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy, in exchange for an honest review.
July 3, 2025
This book covers several important topics such as feminism, violence against women, crime, small islands, colonialism, politics and power. Unfortunately I think this book tried to cover too many topics at once, it made me think “jack of all trades master of none.” While the novel brought up some good points about feminism, none of these points were particularly remarkable. I also wish that the characters were better developed, they just felt too one-dimensional. I did like the way that this novel emphasised the importance of building community in any movement. Overall, this book was decent and had a lot of potential but it fell a bit short for me.
May 11, 2024
It took me a while to get used to the language, but oh my goodness, what an amazing book this is... Monique Roffey paints the picture of the island so beautifully - you can almost hear the steel pans and smell the camp's cooking. The story is both bleak and uplifting, girl power standing up to mass murder being ignored, misogyny, domestic violence and the coming together of strong women regardless of religion, race or upbringing. This story will stay with me for a very long time.
Thank you #Netgalley for this ARC
Thank you #Netgalley for this ARC
January 3, 2025
An almost-detective story that quickly turned into something else entirely...felt like a call to arms, and it is slightly heavy handed in places but still, I was ready to go on that protest along with them as I read.
September 18, 2024
Some lush writing and a great exploration of misogyny - if it had come out in 2017, it would probably have been a huge hit. Unfortunately a little too heavy-handed in its message.
October 7, 2024
Haunting yet hopeful, a feminist missive about the coming together of women to occupy the fictional Caribbean island of St. Colibri and demand an end to femicide. Loved it.
July 13, 2025
Just a genuinely really engaging plot from start to finish, not to be cliche but I could not put it down
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