Appreciating the power that Trinidad wields, she begins to document the new colours, smells, sights of this island, noting how “Trinidad surrounded us, hilly and bushy, boisterously green.”

Later, she directs her keen observational eye towards Eric Williams, the new leader of Trinidad, writing him hundreds of unsent letters. These letters express her growing resentment and feelings of indeed being surrounded by the personified, even glorified, woman of Trinidad.

Conversely, her husband George falls irrevocably in love; Trinidad quickly becoming the ‘other woman’ in his relationship with his wife. His unrelenting worship of all things Trinidadian, the land, its climate and its women, increasingly isolate the already lonely Sabine.

As the years pass, the overwhelming heat wears away at Sabine, her love for her husband slowly evaporating in the sun. Yet, she is held there, flitting between intense hatred and genuine love and concern for Trinidad.

The green bicycle offers Sabine one of her few pleasures. Riding around the island she discovers another side of Trinidad, of an island united with a shared revolutionary voice, unintentionally enthralling Sabine. This voice however doesn’t captivate George in the same way, as he chooses to remain blissfully unaware of problems outside of his conceived paradise.

Sabine instead becomes deeply involved with following the political developments of the PNM. It is not until years after their arrival that George desperately attempts to understand his wife’s history, and opens his eyes to the Trinidad Sabine has always seen.

Monique Roffey’s novel starts at the end. That is to say, it begins in Trinidad in 2006, jumping back to 1956, with the novel then continuing chronologically. This structure brilliantly provides the reader with the gift of hindsight, allowing for a clearer perspective on the events later narrated.

It is a tale which will embed Trinidad into the consciousness of its readers, offering something real; real love, real loss and discovery. Powerfully told, Trinidad is vibrantly conjured and appreciated. A book I wanted to begin again once I had finished.

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle is available at Amazon for £3.99

Eleanor Beeton

At 20 years old, Tassie Keltjin is already afloat in the strange world of college, work and first loves. Self-proclaimed “fresh from childhood”, she is unprepared for the changes 9/11 inflicts on the world. Though the terrorist attacks initially appear less significant than her more present concerns, their repercussions slowly seep into her world, irrevocably tangling strands of her life.

Sarah and Edward, the foster parents of Emmie, whom Tassie is hired to care for, maintain an awkward distance from each other and, to an extent, from Tassie. They draw her into their strange society obsessed with presentation and image. Sarah neurotically strives for perfection in all aspects of her life, crafting beautiful dishes for her restaurant while attempting to control the way her adopted daughter Emmie will fit into society as a black child with white parents, growing up in a white town.

Both Sarah and Tassie remain in the past. For Sarah, this is a time outside the novel, where old tragedies linger. For Tassie, it is her quiet childhood on the farm with her brother. Neither can settle in their new worlds but merely watch other people, drifting.

This translates into a detached, observational tone wherever Tassie appears throughout the novel. Information is passed to the reader from snippets of conversations which float up the stairs, beyond the gate. Tassie’s literal interpretations of overheard voices allow the reader to adopt a similar distance to the outside world, preferring her more comical perspective. The phrase “Well, that’s hogwash” prompts Tassie to muse, “I had once seen a hog washed. In whey.”

This is a great read which follows the subtle changes from childhood to adulthood. Narrating a challenging time in Tassie’s life, A Gate at the Stairs reveals the route she takes in weaving through the difficulties she encounters, with increasing self-awareness and innocent charm, while maintaining realism. It’s definitely a novel to pack for a train journey.

Get A Gate at the Stairs for £3.20 from Amazon
Eleanor Beeton

To keep up with Eleanor follow @ebeeton on Twitter.

Get reading with us. We’re working our way through the Orange Prize 2010 list.

Balram is born to lead a dead-end life in The Darkness of destitute village described by the wealthy as a paradise of piety and family affection. For much of his life cannot see a way of getting out of it. He inevitably is taken out of school and eventually becomes a driver, virtual property of his master. Even his family’s water buffalo has a better position in the world than he does.

Balram’s India is filthy, corrupt and brutal. Every page is another description of the humiliation of servants by their masters and men lining up to defecate in Delhi. There is little sense of sensationalism except to mock a culture, a self and their prejudices. It all feels uncontrived – like an inverse love letter to someone who has disappointed you.

Aravind Adiga’s writing is fresh and the images both irreverent and potent. At one point he describes the vein on the water buffalo’s head as the size of a boy’s penis. At another he fiercely describes the roaches as they land on the outside of Balram’s mosquito net. The image is never forced. The result is a first novel, which is anything but half-baked.

Click here to get The White Tiger from Amazon for £4.

Burnt Shadows £5.09 from Amazon

“There was something she learnt to recognise after Nagasaki, after Partition: those who could step out from loss, and those who would remain mired in it.”

This is a story of love and devotion and the prevailing strength of the protagonist Hiroko. After the loss of Konrad, her fiancé, and her father in the attack on Nagasaki, Hiroko leaves her now unrecognisable home for the bustling world of colonial Delhi. Finding there Konrad’s relatives, a bond is created which binds his family and hers throughout the decades which the novel captures.

As a stranger moving between different lands, Hiroko attempts to counter her dislocation from the unknown through her gift with language. The reader similarly experiences this sense of displacement as they are transported through the narrative, suddenly finding themselves fast-forwarded years in the future.

This disorientating technique allows for not only the novel to span over five decades of turbulent history, but also provides a physical experience for the reader where the familiar becomes foreign.

Burnt Shadows captures the tides of history, transporting the reader with Hiroko through changing landscapes and ideals, as she dreams of escaping the shadow of Nagasaki and the physical bird-like scars she carries with her.

The prologue poignantly asks, “How did it come to this?”, paving the way for a dramatic narrative which tries to answer this question, and in doing so, reveals Hiroko’s quiet endurance and the entwining of beauty and horror in her world.

This novel doesn’t lend itself easily to summaries; it is best left explored by the reader on their own. Beautifully written, exhilarating and at times exhausting, this is a novel which allows you to disappear into a world far removed from your own. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Eleanor Beeton

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But it’s also the kind of book you’d leave lying about for your friends to take a glance and have a laugh. And I’ve had more than one friend who has read it for brief entertainment and another who borrowed it for a couple of months (during which time, I severely missed it!).

You see, it’s become a manual of sorts amongst me and my lot. We are often heard muttering, “I wonder what The Thrift Book says about that.” And it touches so many sections of life from supermarket shopping to the joys of swapping clothes online to holidaying in a yurt. You learn that olive oil is a magical substance, which does everything imaginable.

Its greatest merit possibly lies in its invaluable list of resources from suggestions of makeup brands (which comes across as genuine not marketeering) to websites, blogs and books (which Knight suggests you get from a library) with everything you need to know about cutting your bills or making your own clothes.

It’s not the eat-pasta-for-a-week brand of thrift. In fact, Knight admits that it took her a while to realise that thrift did not equal glum. She writes that at 42: “I’ve got over lying in the bath pretending to be Ophelia, but, clearly, not over thinking money is, like, really square.”

Rather, The Thrift Book elevates thrifty living to something of living in an almost celebratory way that makes use of everything around you and refuses to waste your resources. And even if you already knew quite a lot about that (it’s been accused of being too basic, though Knight admits it’s intended to be), the author’s hilarity is worth it.

Take a look:
Click here to get it hardback on Amazon for £9.22
Click here to get it paperback on Amazon for £4.98

Adele Jarrett-Kerr