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PASSIONTIDE by Monique Roffey

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for the ARC ebook to read.

The title, Passiontide, is the last two weeks of Lent. On the small tropical island of St. Colibri, carnival is just over and Sora Tanaka, a young Japanese steel-pan player is found brutally murdered lying under a cannonball tree. Because the island is known for women being murdered, there is a special unit within the police called OMWEN, the Office for Murdered Women. There have been five hundred women on the island killed. It took a foreign woman to be killed before an inept group consisting of a police inspector and local government cared to have the person found; only because of it looking bad for tourism.

Sora’s death has finally made women say, “enough is enough” and four women from various walks of life, join forces and find new ways to help one another and soon more and more women join in this rebellion. Sora’s voice of the dead, is used throughout the novel. Femicide is the topic in, Passiontide. Raffey starts this novel off with the impression of a detective story; becoming apparent that “state-approved, and state-sanctioned misogyny” plays out with the prime minister, mayor, inspector, and almost all the male characters.

Overall I enjoyed this book. There is an unfamiliar (to me) island lexicon that hampered my reading till I became more familiar with it. I believe it is the Trinidadian English that gives the narrative authenticity. I enjoyed the larger-than-life characters Roffey created. I look forward to seeing what Monique Roffey has next for us.