In Laura Fish's ambitious and captivating novel, three very different women struggle for freedom. While Elizabeth Barrett Browning is confined to bed, chafing against the restriction of her doctors and writing poetry and fretful letters, at her family's Jamaican estate Kaydia, the Creole housekeeper, tries to protect her daughter from their predatory master; and a recently freed black slave, Sheba, mourns the loss of her lover.

As Elizabeth, a passionate abolitionist, struggles to come to terms with the source of her wealth and privilege both Sheba and Kydia fight to escape a tragic past which seems ever-present. The resulting novel is an extraordinary evocation of the dark side of the nineteenth-century that is both horrifying and ultimately redeeming.

Laura Fish was born in London in 1964, of Caribbean parents. She has lived in Southern Africa and Australia, and has held posts as a Creative Writing tutor at various universities including the University of East Anglia, where she recently completed a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing. She holds the RCUK Academic Fellowship in Creative Writing at Newcastle University. Her first novel, Flight of Black Swans, was published in 1995.