Black Rock

This is a beautiful story, told in the first person, of a teenage girl growing up in Black Rock,Tobago and, after a dreadful event in her life, runs away to Trinidad. The descriptions in the book are so colourful, and for anyone fortunate enough to have been to any of the Caribbean islands, the vivid images portrayed by Smyth take you straight back there.

From reading the first few pages of the way that Celia's uncle looks at her, it's not difficult to imagine what awful things await her. Celia runs away from home where she has been cared for by her aunt since birth having been told that her mother died in childbirth and her father, a white man passing through the islands, lives far away in Southampton, England. Celia is lucky in that she meets the right person on her crossing from Tobago to Trinidad and she also manages to get a decent job, but she is exploited (or maybe she's just young and naïve) and ends up in a dreadful mess. She has been told awful life-changing lies by her family and only when it is too late in her life does she learn the truth. For a debut novel this is an excellent, powerful story which stays with you and I would recommend it for all women, men and teenagers.

#FourHalfStars #Fiction #ComingofAge