"Daughter of the Caribbean"

By Norma Jennings

Synopsis

This novel is rich in history, compelling characters, violence and celebration, intrigue and romance, tragedy and triumph. It is inspired by the author’s personal experiences as a child in the Caribbean.

Abandoned by her mother at the age of four, Olivia is raised by her grandmother Edith Reid, the family's matriarch and an illustrious storyteller. Like a master sculptor, Reid chisels the character of her beloved grandchild, and braces her to prevail over life's inevitable challenges. Her chilling tales of the family estate called Twickenham shock Olivia and her adventurous siblings into both defiance and humility.

Long before they were born, Reid had inherited the old Jamaican sugarcane plantation from her own grandmother. As Twickenham becomes playground to the children, the family's great narrator, their grandmother, keeps its rich and violent past alive. Stories narrated by Reid portray Twickenham as a plantation in the late 1700s, riddled with mystery and brutality. Deliverance finally approached as Twickenham is slashed and burned by relentless Afro Caribbean freedom fighters called Maroons.

Olivia soaks up the messages of these stories with impassioned exuberance while she plays with her siblings at Twickenham. Their daily adventures include voodoo ceremonies and other bizarre Caribbean customs. One secret trip to a grotesque ceremony has Olivia and her brother bolting for safety after smoke ascends from a grave that the voodoo man had ceremoniously disturbed. Another childhood jaunt through Twickenham’s bushes has the two notorious siblings galloping away from a grave digging gone bad. And life as a Brownie is even more exciting, as Olivia and the troop leap into trees to escape the fury of a ferocious, hairy wild boar.

In the early 1970s, Olivia moves to the United States, becomes a business executive and single parent, and raises three children alone with a determination and resilience reminiscent of her Maroon forebears. During those years she is forced to cope from a distance with alarming political upheavals in her homeland that threaten both Twickenham and her family’s survival. And like a modern day Maroon, she wages a final battle to save the old estate that culminates with her own passionate slash and burn ritual. How she does that, what it demands of her, and the outcome she finds are bound inextricably to the ghosts and history of the Caribbean.