Okay, anyone who knows me as a reader knows this book isn't going to be my cup of tea. I really don't like magical realism no matter how many awards the book has won. Miss Rain nodded. “Sometimes, we women not fair even in our own thoughts about ourselves. You men born from us, and yet you assume power. Is we who give you that power. You see that man, Life? That man make me wait, make me patient.”

You make a very interesting point about David as well. We get the sense in this book that the relationship with Aycayia forever changes him, teaches him how to be a better man, and he notes that in his conversation with Arcadia where he tells her:And that passage made me think of how history has perpetuated this line of division between them, even though they’re family. Until Aycayia, David may have never been invited to her house, even when his Uncle Life is Reggie’s dad, and David and Arcadia are cousins. So, one can wonder why, for example, could it be historic guilt on Arcadia’s part why she never invited him? We know throughout the book that this is something she is aware of that she carries with her. But there is another of David’s reflections that hits it home: I am bilingual and can speak this other type of English when I want to. It’s in my ear and it is the language I grew up with all around me. Trinidadians love speaking their own English; it’s full of poetic forms and can be playful and lyrical and comical. Trinidadians are verbal acrobats, and I love being on the island just to hear the people speak … The magic-realist novel is centered around a mythical figure, a mermaid, from Taino legends, cursed thousands of years ago to live in the sea, as the author explained when she was crowdfunding the novel:

What makes the novel sing is how Roffey fleshes out mythical goings-on with pin-sharp detail from the real world." - The Observer T: Hey Vina! How are you? It was so good to have a bit of a break ... I say that knowing I haven’t really had a break. I just tend to fill in the time with other things, like sewing or online classes or reading. But it’s been raining so much here in London, I haven’t really gone out to do much of anything. How about you, how has your summer been so far? Escape to the ocean with the entrancing, unforgettable winner of the Costa Book of the Year - as read on BBC Radio 4. I especially loved working out the Caribbean language and bringing these characters to life. This book was so immersive and I loved its focus on myths and transformation.

Don’t miss

Actually, when I think about it, we’ve looked at a number of books that grapple with the legacy of colonialism from all over the world, right? There was Insurrecto, which centered on American colonization of the Philippines and more recently Potiki, which talked about the displacement and cultural subordination of the Māori people by British settler colonists. And so, it was interesting to notice similar themes that have come up in these books or that have been pointed out to us by the writers. So for instance, the appearance of untranslated Waray in Insurrecto and te reo Māori in Potiki not only gives cultural texture to our reading experience, but I think it also symbolizes an act of resistance against colonialism. And inexplicably overlooked for the Booker Prize and Women's Prize, which says rather more about those prizes than the book. It's good, it's really fine, I'm just getting old and have such a low tolerance for all this magical realism whimsicality. David was strumming his guitar and singing to himself when she first raised her barnacled, seaweed-clotted head from the flat, grey sea, its stark hues of turquoise not yet stirred. Plain so, the mermaid popped up and watched him for some time before he glanced around and caught sight of her. This was my first book I’ve read (listened) by author Monique Roffey. Her writing is gorgeous and completely engrossing.

One of the characters I couldn’t help but adore, called Reggie, is so open and curious about the world. He is the one to fall into such an easy and close friendship with Aycayia, with such an open-mindedness that I loved their bond together. She is seen as property not as a person. Aycayia turns out to have thoughts and opinions of her own. Arcadia, the only white woman in the book tells her of local history and Aycayia responds: In a stunning fusion of story and voice, this is told in a lyrical manner which uses Caribbean cadences and rhythm alongside Aycayia's free verse narrative, foregrounding language as one of the contested issues here: the 'standard' harsh American of the men from Florida contrasted with variations of accent and communications from sign language to singing. I listened to the audiobook and benefited from the authentic reading - I don't think this is a book which should be read in 'received pronunciation' English!

Monique Roffey

It’s really not as simple as that, Roffey points out: “I think if you unravel female jealousy, you find the patriarchy. It’s a competition for the alpha male, and we’ve ever been thus. Our patriarchy is highly internalised.” Ah, I love this idea of verbal acrobatics as kind of like this superpower. I mean, colonizers often didn’t learn the language of the people they colonized; but in being forced to learn the language of their colonizers, the colonized learned to wield it like a weapon, I would say.