Breanne Mc Ivor Libri

In these carefully crafted stories, with room for humour, though of a distinctly gothic kind, Breanne Mc Ivor reaches deep into the roots of Trinidad folk narratives to present us with very modern versions of our troubled selves.Breanne Mc Ivor is a bold new voice in Caribbean fiction. The Trinidad of her stories is utterly contemporary but also a place defined by its folk mythologies and its cultural creations, its traditions of masking and disguises. Her stories confront the increasing economic and cultural divisions between rich and poor, the alarming rise in crime, murders and an alternative economy based on drug trafficking. Their daring is that they both look within the human psyche and back in time to make sense of this reality. The figure of the loup-garou, the hyperbolically violent rhetoric of the Midnight Robber of the carnival parade – or even cannibalism taking place far off the beaten track – have become almost comic tropes of a dusty folklore. In Mc Ivor’s stories they become real and terrifying day-light presences, monsters who pass among us.Her great gift as a writer is to take us to unexpected places, both to seduce us into a kind of sympathy for her monsters of greater and lesser kinds, and sometimes to reveal a capacity for redemption amongst characters we are tempted to dismiss as shallow, unlikable human beings. The problem, in a world of masks and disguises, is how to tell the difference.

Sometimes you need to clash to make an impact. Bianca Bridge is like an eyeshadow palette. She's a vibrant kaleidoscope of big personality and even bigger dreams, with a tendency towards messiness and fallout. Case in point: ruining her career prospects and hopes of becoming a writer by having an affair with a married government minister. Fiercely confident and uncompromising, her tyrannical new boss Obadiah Cortland - makeup artist and legend in Trinidad's beauty scene - is like a statement red lipstick. 'The God of Good Looks' is a facade he has perfected over years of slipping through the island's rigid class barriers, and he knows as well as Bianca that the tiniest smudge can ruin your image. When Bianca's ex threatens both their futures, this clashing combination must find a way to work together to save everything they care about. But might they actually bring out the best in each other? Sparkling, big-hearted and life-affirming, The God of Good Looks is a story about prejudice and pride, the masks we wear and who we can become if we dare to take them off. ----- 'Phenomenal! A book worthy of a standing ovation. I will never forget how this novel made me feel' LIZZIE DAMILOLA BLACKBURN, author of Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? 'A dazzling delight ... I didn't want it to end!' COCO MELLORS, author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein 'A glittering will-they, won't-they Bridget Jones re-boot' NIKKI MAY, author of Wahala