New Book: The Goat Woman of Largo Bay

The location of the Shad Series is a fishing village on the northeastern coast of Jamaica. Bathed by ever-constant sea breezes and brushed by aquamarine waves, Largo Bay appears to the tourist as a picturesque little community on the main road to Kingston. In reality, it is a ferment of human dreams and fears, like any other place.

The Goat Woman of Largo Bay, the first in the amateur detective series, introduces the hero, Shadrack Myers. He’s a man who refuses to see his life as limited, despite his lack of options. Born to a father who abandoned his mother, and to a mother who abandoned him to his grandmother, Shad has few grudges. He is a joyful character, brimming with hope and compassion, and what he lacks in book learning, he makes up for in life experience and common sense.

The book starts when Shad and his disillusioned American boss, Eric Keller, notice a moving spot on the island offshore from the bar. Although he first thinks the spot is a goat, Shad discovers that it is a woman, a woman who wants to be alone. Simone refuses to leave the island and opts to rent the island and live in the ruins that were once Eric’s small hotel. Needless to say, her presence on the island attracts attention, drama, and political intrigue.

This and the other books in the series are told from three perspectives, allowing the reader to enter the minds of locals and visitors who interact with Shad and his fellow Largoites.


About the Author

A personal mantra of "Leave no stone unturned" has led Gillian Royes to a life of adventure in five countries. It was not her intention to become a writer, although she was a prolific journal-keeper from the age of twelve. But after being an editor, an entrepreneur, a corporate executive, a communications consultant, a project manager and a university lecturer, the only occupation left to her was writing.

Born in Jamaica on the shores of Kingston Harbour, Gillian left the island to attend Colorado College in Colorado Springs – the beginning of her life journey. She experienced California in the mid sixties, Europe in the late sixties, Brazil in the early seventies, the heyday of youth empowerment.

After marching in Madison, Wisconsin (while earning a Masters in Journalism), protesting against the bombing of Cambodia, she worked as an editor at the Institute of the Black World, a Pan-Africanist think-tank in Atlanta. This was followed by marriage, a doctorate from Emory University, and a teaching position at Clark College.

The Caribbean Sea still ran through her veins, however, and it pulled her back to Jamaica to work as a communications consultant and entrepreneur in craft distribution. She authored her first book, Business is Good, a history of the Canning’s Corporation, a historical Caribbean company, while living in Trinidad. Returning to Jamaica for the last time, she worked with a large charity in the ghettoes of Kingston, coming face to face with drug dons and war lords.

Atlanta was calling, however, and she returned to work as a communications consultant, and to lecture at Clark Atlanta and Georgia State Universities. Now living in the US Virgin Islands, she writes and teaches journalism, the gorgeous Caribbean Sea within sight every day.

http://www.gillianroyes.com/index.html