Black Rock

Celia's mother died bringing her into the world - when one soul flies in, another flies out, her aunt Tassi says. So she lives in Black Rock, Tobago, with her cousins and Tassi's second husband Roman, a man so low he could crawl under a snake's belly on stilts. Celia thinks he's the devil, and one day he does something to prove her right, so she runs away to Trinidad and a new life in service. This is a lyrically beautiful story; Amanda Smyth's writing matches the lushness of the vivid tropical landscape. "Black Rock" is tinged with a sense of the supernatural.