Monique Roffey, Passiontide

Costa-winning author of The Mermaid of Black Conch, Monique Roffey, will discuss her electrifying new novel about four women who spark a revolution on a Caribbean island. In a community in which women’s voices are often silenced, a group soon find themselves compelled to speak out when a young female steel-pan player is found dead beneath a cannonball tree.

This event will include an audience Q&A and after the event there will be an opportunity to get your book signed by the author.

Thursday 5th June, 7.00pm

Venue: Maldon Library, Carmelite House, White Horse Lane, Maldon, CM9 5FW

Tickets: £10 / £8 concessions (Students, Under 27s and Unwaged)

Box Office: essexbookfestival.org.uk or Mercury Theatre 01206 573948

Passiontide by Monique Roffey

Early one morning, at the close of St Colibri’s carnival, a young female steel-pan player is found dead beneath a cannonball tree. It is a discovery that will transform the lives of everyone on this small island.

As the days pass, this shocking event draws together four women. There’s Sharleen, a journalist with an eye for the real story. Her childhood friend Tara, a pink-haired, straight-talking local activist. Gigi, the ‘notorious’ founder of the Port Isabella Sex Workers Collective. And Daisy, first lady of St Colibri, who is haunted by a disappearance in her own family decades ago.

In a community in which women’s voices are often silenced and violence against them is overlooked time after time, the group soon find themselves compelled to speak out – and to act. But even they could never have foreseen the consequences of their courage…

‘Passiontide is a bold rallying cry of a novel. Vital, enraging and brilliant. I loved it’ – Sarah Winman, author of Still Life

Order a copy of Passiontide by Monique Roffey from the Essex Book Festival bookshop at bookshop.org

Monique Roffey

Monique Roffey was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and lives in London. She is the author of seven novels and a memoir. The Mermaid of Black Conch won the Costa Book of the Year and the Costa Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Goldsmiths Prize. Her other highly acclaimed books include Archipelago, which won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle and House of Ashes. In addition to her work as an environmental activist, she is a professor of contemporary fiction at Manchester Metropolitan University.