WINNER of the Amazon First Novel Award Finalist for the Kobo Emerging Writer Award Finalist for OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature Shortlisted for the Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society Awards How does memory become myth? How do lies become family lore? How do we escape the trauma of the past when the truth has been forgotten? Barbados, 1962. Lost soul Iapetus roams the island, scared and alone, driven mad after witnessing his father’s death at the hands of his mother and his older brother, Cronus. Just before Iapetus is lost forever, he has a son, but the baby is not enough to save him from himself—or his family’s secrets. Seventeen years later, Iapetus’s son, the stoic Atlas, lives in a loveless house, under the care of his uncle, Cronus, and in the shadow of his charismatic cousin Z. Knowing little about the tragic circumstances of his father’s life, Atlas must choose between his desire to flee the island and his loyalty to the uncle who raised him. Time passes. Atlas’s daughter, Calypso, is a beautiful and wilful teenager who is desperate to avoid being trapped in a life of drudgery at her uncle Z’s hotel. When she falls dangerously in love with a visiting real estate developer, she finds herself entangled in her uncle’s shady dealings, a pawn in the games of the powerful men around her. It is now 2019. Calypso’s son, Nautilus, is on a path of self-destruction as he grapples with his fatherless condition, his mixed-race identity and his complicated feelings of attraction towards his best friend, Daniel. Then one night, after making an impulsive decision, Nautilus finds himself exiled to Canada. The Island of Forgetting is an intimate saga spanning four generations of one family who run a beachfront hotel. Loosely inspired by Greek mythology, this is a novel about the echo of deep—and sometimes tragic—love and the ways a family’s past can haunt its future.

In the tradition of Zadie Smith and Marlon James, a brilliant Caribbean writer delivers a powerful story about four people each desperate to escape their legacy of violence in a so-called "paradise." In Baxter’s Beach, Barbados, Lala’s grandmother Wilma tells the story of the one-armed sister. It’s a cautionary tale, about what happens to girls who disobey their mothers and go into the Baxter’s Tunnels. When she’s grown, Lala lives on the beach with her husband, Adan, a petty criminal with endless charisma whose thwarted burglary of one of the beach mansions sets off a chain of events with terrible consequences. A gunshot no one was meant to witness. A new mother whose baby is found lifeless on the beach. A woman torn between two worlds and incapacitated by grief. And two men driven into the Tunnels by desperation and greed who attempt a crime that will risk their freedom – and their lives. How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House is an intimate and visceral portrayal of interconnected lives, across race and class, in a rapidly changing resort town, told by an astonishing new author of literary fiction. One of 2021's Most Anticipated New Fiction The Millions * Lit Hub * O Magazine * Elle.com * Entertainment Weekly * Minneapolis Star-Tribune * Bustle

'AN OUTSTANDING DEBUT' CHERIE JONES, author of How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps her House 'VIVID AND AUTHENTIC' LEONE ROSS, author of This One Sky Day At eighteen years old, Dinah gave away her baby son to the rich couple she worked for before they left Jamaica. They never returned. She never forgot him. Eighteen years later, a young man comes from the US to Kingston. From the moment she sees him, Dinah never doubts - this is her son. What happens next will make everyone question what they know and where they belong. A powerful story of belonging, identity and inheritance, What a Mother's Love Don't Teach You brings together a blazing chorus of voices to evoke Jamaica's ghetto, dance halls, criminal underworld and corrupt politics, at the beating heart of which is a mother's unshakeable love for her son. 'TAKES US ON A WONDERFUL MULTIFACETED JOURNEY THORUGH THE LIVES, LOVES, PLEASURES AND ATROCITIES OF THE FOLKS OF KINGSTON' JACOB ROSS, author of The Bone Readers 'AN EXCITING READ' YEWANDE OMOTOSO, author of An Unusual Grief 'A WONDERFUL DEBUT NOVEL' GILLIAN ROYES, author of the Shad series 'TAYLOR'S GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENT IS HOW SHE CAPTURES THE DARKNESS OF THE GHETTO WHILE NEVER DIMMING THE VIVACITY, DETERMINATION AND EXUBERANCE DISPLAYED BY ITS PEOPLE. THIS IS A THRILLING READ' CELESTE MOHAMMED, author of Pleasantview