March 13, 2007

New Book: Unburnable by Marie-Elena John

Marie-Elena JohnHaunted by scandal and secrets, Lillian Baptiste fled Dominica when she was fourteen after discovering she was the daughter of Iris, the half-crazy woman whose life was told of in chanté mas songs sung during Carnival: songs about a village on a mountaintop littered with secrets, masquerades that supposedly fly and wreak havoc, and a man who suddenly and mysteriously dropped dead.


After twenty years away, Lillian returns to her island of birth to face the demons of her past, and with the help of Teddy, a man who has loved her for many years, she may yet find a way to heal.


Set in both contemporary Washington, D.C. and Dominica, and switching back and forth between contemporary and historical stories, Unburnable traverses literary genres and defies an easy label: page-turner, love story, historical fiction, and murder mystery. The story -- richly textured and lushly rendered--weaves together Caribbean history, African culture, and American sensibilities, and the revelations of its final pages bring to light an important, but little-known aspect of Caribbean history.


Unburnable by Marie-Elena John


Unburnable


Hardcover: 304 pages


Publisher: Amistad


ISBN-10: 0060837578


ISBN-13: 978-0060837570






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