Passiontide

Description

Four women spark a revolution on a Caribbean island – the electrifying new novel from the Costa-winning author of The Mermaid of Black Conch.

‘Vital, enraging and brilliant. I loved it’ SARAH WINMAN

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.

As the days pass, this shocking event draws together four women. There’s Sharleen, a journalist with an eye for the real story. Her childhood friend Tara, the pink-haired, straight-talking star of the activism scene. Gigi, the ‘notorious’ founder of the Port Isabella Sex Workers Collective. And Daisy, first lady of St Colibri, who is haunted by a disappearance in her own family decades ago.

In a community in which women’s voices are often silenced and violence against them is often overlooked, the group soon find themselves compelled to speak out – and to act. But even they could never have foreseen the consequences of their courage…

Passiontide is a fiercely alive novel about women daring to imagine a different world. It confirms Monique Roffey as one of our most spellbinding storytellers.

‘Extraordinary… pulsates with the rebel spirit of women’
HANNAH LOWE

* A Guardian Book to Look Out For in 2024 *

PRAISE FOR MONIQUE ROFFEY:

‘Monique Roffey is a unique talent’ Bernardine Evaristo

‘A daring, mesmerising novel’ Maggie O’Farrell

‘Wonderful, immersive, evocative . . . A masterclass of world-building’ Bridget Collins

‘Once I had started it, I couldn’t stop . . . brilliant’ Clare ChambersPassiontide is a bold rallying cry of a novel. Vital, enraging and brilliant. I loved it—SARAH WINMAN, author of Still Life

Monique Roffey is a unique talent—BERNARDINE EVARISTO

Set on the fictional Caribbean island of ­­­St Colibri, Monique Roffey’s Passiontide is an extraordinary exploration of the magical possibilities of collective action, and pulsates with the rebel spirit of women. Activists, sex-workers and obeah women occupy the pages of this brilliantly told narrative of struggle and uprising – which is also a subtle and shape-shifting call to arms—HANNAH LOWE, Costa Book of the Year-winning author of The Kids

A daring, mesmerising novel that continually unseats expectation – I was deliciously unsure, throughout, what would happen next—MAGGIE O’FARRELL on The Mermaid of Black Conch

On a Caribbean island, four women spark a revolution in Monique Roffey’s Passiontide. Roffey explores the history of the Caribbean, gender and violence with spellbinding results—Books for 2024, i-DMonique Roffey was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad. She is the author of eight novels and a memoir. The Mermaid of Black Conch won the Costa Book of the Year and the Costa Novel Award 2020. It was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2021, the Goldsmiths Prize 2020 and the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2021, and longlisted for the Orwell Prize, the Ondaatje Prize and the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature 2021. Her highly acclaimed previous books are sun dog, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle (shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2010), Archipelago (winner of the OCM Bocas Award for Caribbean Literature 2013), House of Ashes (shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2014), The Tryst and With the Kisses of His Mouth. Monique Roffey is a Professor at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University and a tutor for the National Writers Centre.GB

Additional information