I've just returned from over 50 years in Trinidad, in the company of George and Sabine Harwood. Like Sabine, I've been overwhelmed by the constant and debilitating sticky heat there. Like Sabine I've wondered at the extreme lushness of the vegetation, the loud and strident colours and sounds of the wildlife. Like Sabine I've been discomfited by the tense and angry political situation, which leaves many of the white population, often the women, colonial hangers-on, feeling disadvantaged (despite their very obvious economic advantages) and distressed.

In truth, I've never visited Trinidad. But so lush and evocative are Monique Roffey's descriptions of the landscape, the townscapes, the climate, the boredom, the anger: all part of the complex period through which she passes during her time there, that it's almost as if I have.

Sabine's homesickness for a country she would perhaps no longer recognise, her strange need to communicate with politician Eric Williams as his career rises then falls are all richly described. This is a book which will stay in the memory. ( )

We start with current day story of George and Sabine. They are older, Sabine is bitter, they are both generally unlikable. Than the story goes to the 1950s, Than the last section is the 70s. These were not people I cared about. I think it would have been better to have started in the 50s when they first came to Trinidad and move forward. ( )

Sabine is an English housewife who followed her husband to Trinidad. He loves it, she hates it and wants to go home. He lies and promises to take her back when he has no intent to do so. She whines and complains and spends much of her time delving into island politics, especially the rise and fall of Eric Williams. A very slim pick. The first half is annoying as heck; the second half improves a bit. Narrator is amazing but Sabine’s voice is nails on a chalkboard. I suppose it’s meant to reflect her nagging, annoying personality. I wish there’d been some point to the book. There’s not. Just two people falling in and out of love on an island a long way from where they probably belong. ( )

More like a 3.75 on the nat-o-meter

Characters don't have to walk off the page for me to keep turning the pages but this is a novel that would be better as a screenplay or even a script and set design - somehow it is missing that breath of life that actors can bring to a story - if well cast, well staged, and strongly acted, the circumstances of this tale and the observers' perspective on the characters' experiences would light this world of contradictions on fire.
( )

I really enjoyed this novel, although I think I would have preferred it if the narrative had followed a linear time line, rather than started in the present and then gone back to the 1950s. However, that is a small niggle that I think just spoilt some of the action as I knew the result later on in the 1970s. The novel has three parts: the present day, 1956 and 1970 and these are periods of significance for Trinidad. The novel follows political action and the action of a family and particularly a couple who arrive from England. They mix with other ex-pats and the local people are generally servants. The novel is written very well and it was engaging. The images were beautiful and well drawn, particularly the landscape of the island, the rounded hills, the savannah, the beaches, there are some beautifully drawn scenes that give this a strong sense of place. ( )