Celia's mother died bringing her into the world - when one soul flies in, another flies out, her aunt Tassi says. So she lives in Black Rock, Tobago, with her cousins and Tassi's second husband Roman, a man so sly he could crawl under a snake's belly on stilts. Celia thinks he's the devil, so when he does something that proves her right, she runs away to Trinidad and a new life in service.

Amanda Smyth is Irish/Trinidadian. She completed an MA in Creative Writing at UEA in 2000. Her short stories have been published in New Writing, London Magazine, and broadcast on Radio 4 as part of a series called Love and Loss. Amanda was awarded an Arts Council Grant for her first novel, Black Rock.