Winner, Costa Book of the year, 2020
Winner, Costa Novel Prize, 2020
Shortlisted, Goldsmiths Prize, 2020
Shortlisted, Rathbones/Folio Award, 2021
Shortlisted, Republic of Consciousness Prize, 2021
Also longlisted for the OCM Bocas Award, 2021, Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and the Ondaatje Prize.
April, 1976, St Constance, a tiny Caribbean village on the island of Black Conch. A fisherman sings to himself in his pirogue, waiting for a catch – but attracts a sea dweller he doesn’t expect. Aycayia, a beautiful young women cursed by jealous wives to live as a mermaid has been swimming the Caribbean Sea for centuries. And she is entranced by this man David and her song.
But her fascination is her undoing. She hears his boat’s engine again and follows it, and finds herself at the mercy of American tourists, landed on the island for the annual fishing competition. After a fearsome battle, she is pulled out of the sea and strung up on the dock as a trophy. It is David who rescues her, and gently wins her trust – as slowly, painfully, she starts to transform into a woman again. But transformations are not always permanent, and jealousy, like love, can have the force of a hurricane, and last much longer.
London, midsummer night. Jane and Bill meet the mysterious Lilah in a bar. She entrances the couple with half-true, mixed up tales about her life. At closing time, Jane makes an impulsive decision to invite Lilah back to their home. But Jane has made a catastrophic error of judgment, for Lilah is a skilled and ruthless predator, the likes of which few encounter in a lifetime. Isolated and cursed, Jane and Bill are forced to fight for each other, and, in doing so, discover their covert desires.
Part psychological thriller, part contemporary magical realism, The Tryst revisits the tale of Adam’s first wife, Lilith, to examine the secrets of an everyday marriage.
Shortlisted, COSTA Award, Fiction, 2015
Shortlisted, OCM BOCAS Award for Caribbean Literature, 2015
Set on the fictional island of Sans Amen, this is the story of a botched coup d’état told from the point of view of a gunman and a hostage. Ashes, a spiritually ambitious and conscientious gunman, soon finds himself way out of his depth in the House of Power where a plan to overthrow the government backfires immediately. Aspasia Garland, a minister taken hostage, tries to keep her calm amongst the mayhem, and finds her mothering instincts help her survive amongst the boy soldiers. Breeze, a teenager swept up, survives the chaos and comes out of hiding decades later to confront his crime and ask questions about the nature of power.
Winner OCM BOCAS award for Caribbean Literature, 2013
Shortlisted, The Orion Award, 2014
Following a devastating flood in Trinidad, Gavin Weald, his six-year-old daughter Océan, and their elderly pit bull Suzy, take to the high seas on an old boat called Romany. They leave Port of Spain on a whim during rainy season, their destination a fantasy archipelago, the Galapagos. On their voyage west across the globe they sail through nine countries, most of them island states, picking up the capable skipper Phoebe, a fourth member of crew. As Gavin and Océan grieve their loss, they encounter the vastness of the sea and come to terms with the natural disaster which changed their lives in Trinidad. They arrive in the Galapagos a day before an earthquake erupts on the other side of the world, triggering a massive wave on course to hit the tiny archipelago, where they have safely anchored Romany.
Shortlisted, The Orange Prize, 2010 and the Encore Award, 2011
This novel tells the story of Sabine and George Harwood, a French woman and a British man who arrive as newly-weds in Trinidad at the end of the colonial era. It is 1956 and Trinidad’s new and enigmatic leader Eric Williams has set up the PNM, the first popular people’s party, and is canvassing for votes and for change. Sabine listens to Williams’ speeches at the University of Woodford Sqaure, hears him proclaim Massa Day Done, and knows it is time to leave. George, on the other hand, plans to stay in Trinidad, forever. As Sabine recounts her early years, and confesses her secret letter writing habit to Eric Williams, the reader is drawn into her personal feelings of disillusionment about the many political failures of the island’s independence era.
After a broken love affair, aged forty-one, Roffey went in search of the rich and varied sex life she felt she deserved. Documenting her journey away from the heterosexual norm, Roffey explores the fringes of a more conscious and sex positive world. There are sex-soirees and sex clubs, tantric workshops, BDSM, a trip to the swingers’ resort in Cap D’Agde, a brief encounter with neo-native American sex practice known as Quodooshka and a pilgrimage to a sacred cave in the south of France where Mary Magdalene is said to have hidden after the crucifixion of her lover, Jesus Christ. The title of this memoir is taken from the first line of the Song of Solomon, and the memoir asks if this ancient all-embracing brother/lover type model of a love affair is too idealistic to achieve in the contemporary Western world.
Set in a delicatessen in West London, sun dog tells the tale of August Chalmin, awkward, ginger-haired, fatherless and love-struck, who, one winter morning, wakes up covered in frost. Over the course of the following year, as the seasons change, and as he discovers the true story of his birth, his body slowly erupts in buds, blossoms and ultimately total hair loss. As August heals, as his body harmonises with the world around him, his past becomes resolved and love becomes possible. In this novel, cheeses talk, men dance alone, and somewhere a double sun in the sky, a trick of light known as a sundog, hints at a hidden identity.
Copyright ©2021-2022 Monique Roffey
Designed & Developed by Nicholas Ragoobar
Once I had started it, I couldn’t stop. It was quite unlike anything I’d ever read. Such brilliant myth-making; such powerful storytelling
– Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures
A daring, mesmerising novel that continually unseats expectation – I was deliciously unsure, throughout, what would happen next. With her fierce and shapeshifting mermaid, Roffey has created a modern myth about belonging and the bonds humans form with each other and with their land, single-handedly bringing magic realism up to date
– Maggie O’Farrell, No.1 bestselling author of Hamnet
About wonder, spectacle, as well as greed. The writing is exquisite
– Elizabeth Macneal, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Doll Factory and Circus of Wonders
Wonderfully written, with both soul and intense drama – it glistens almost, like the mermaid!
– Diana Evans, author of Ordinary People
Brilliant! . . . A modern-day mermaid story
– Gemma Chan, British Vogue, ‘In the Bag’
Stunning . . . A mesmerising read
– Nathan Filer, Costa-winning author of The Shock of the Fall
Extraordinary, beautifully written . . . We found it completely compelling . . . It feels like a classic in the making
– Costa Judges, 2020
The tantalising story of a mermaid loved and feared in equal measure . . . A book for our time
– Ingrid Persaud, author of Love After Love
Not your standard mermaid. No comb and glass, no Lorelei hair. No catch and release…
– Margaret Atwood
The Mermaid of the Black Conch arrives bearing tragedy and beauty. Monique Roffey has created a new myth for an age of ruined oceans. She continues to be one of our most exciting new Caribbean voices
– A.L. Kennedy
I absolutely devoured The Mermaid of Black Conch. It’s wonderful, immersive, evocative… A masterclass of world-building
– Bridget Collins, No.1 bestselling author of The Binding
Monique Roffey is the most adventurous of writers and The Mermaid of Black Conch does not disappoint… this is a strange, haunting, original and memorable novel about Aycayia, a mermaid from deep history who is entrapped and taken out of the sea… This is a novel packed with layers of meaning around womanhood, alienation, masculinity, toxic attitudes towards women, and inter-female rivalry, as well as love, compassion and the search for home
– Bernardine Evaristo
Monique Roffey is a unique talent and most daring and versatile of writers. I never know what to expect and I’m never disappointed
– Bernardine Evaristo
The Mermaid of Black Conch is wonderfully written, with both soul and intense drama – it glistens almost, like the mermaid! I love its all-round charisma and also its great compassion for both humanity and the natural world
– Diana Evans
An extraordinary, beautifully written, captivating, visceral book – full of mythic energy and unforgettable characters, including some tremendously transgressive women… It is utterly original – unlike anything we’ve ever read – and feels like a classic in the making from a writer at the height of her powers. It’s a book that will take you to the furthest reaches of your imagination – we found it completely compelling
– Costa Judges, 2020
At last we have Monique Roffey to unhook woman from legend, and bring tired myth into the realm of flesh and blood and sex. The Mermaid of Black Conch plunges fearlessly into the deeps of misogyny, colonial violence, friendship, jealousy, and erotic love in a reading experience as captivating as a tropical storm. Full-throated and mesmerizing
– C. Pam Zhang, Booker-longlisted author of How Much of These Hills is Gold
The novel is a unique Caribbean fable that takes the familiar story of a mermaid abruptly thrust onshore and brings it to a new place. It reads like the work of a novelist in command of her material and focused on using a mythic ‘then’ to speak to now
– Malachi McIntosh, Fiction Chair, OCM Bocas Prize 2021
‘ Hugely entertaining . . . A joy to read, brimming with memorable characters
– BBC News
‘ A dark love story between a fisherman and a mermaid torn from the sea… Touching on themes of love, loss, family and friendship, as well as the negative impacts of jealousy, it’s a moving novel’
– Independent
‘Sensuous, beguiling but without whimsy, Roffey’s tale convincingly transplants a mythical creature into a modern setting – a striking achievement…wondrous
– Sunday Times
‘Magical touches blend with precise realism in this bittersweet tale of a mermaid trying to put the sea behind her… What makes the novel sing is how Roffey fleshes out these mythical goings-on with pin-sharp detail from the real world, as Aycayia, hidden away in David’s bedroom, navigates the perils (and pleasures) of life on land
– Observer
‘Arresting… where can Aycayia [the mermaid] be most free, asks this truly original novel, deftly weaving myth, feminism, humour and social realism’
– Daily Mail
‘A fiercely modern mermaid story… Roffey subverts the fairtyale… The narrative is interspersed with poetry, journal entries, recollections and passages that give insight into various characters’ perspectives; this entertaining novel, like Aycayia [the mermaid], is itself a shape-shifting curiosity’.
– The Times
‘I would definitely recommend The Mermaid of Black Conch…a bittersweet love story between a beautiful young woman cursed to live as a mermaid and a fisherman… a joy to read, brimming with memorable characters and vivid descriptions… a hugely entertaining and thought-provoking novel’
– Rebecca Jones, BBC News
‘A daring, mesmerising novel that continually unseats expectation… With her fierce and shapeshifting mermaid, Roffey has created a modern myth about belonging and the bonds human form with each other and with their land, single-handedly bringing magic realism up to date’ – Maggie O’Farrell, Observer, *Summer Reads of 2021*
‘Roffey doesn’t limit herself to simple romance, but delves into themes of corruption, prejudice, ecology and more’
– Rihannon Thomas, Radio Times
“The Tryst is a sly, feral, witty, offbeat erotic novella that unsettles the reader, even as it arouses. There are sex scenes of breath-taking audacity. What would any of us do if an irresistible sex daemon broke and entered our domestic lives, leaving havoc in her amoral wake?”
Rowan Pelling, editor, The Amorist
“I’ve read The Tryst and was enormously entertained and impressed. It’s wild and witching, at once contemporary and atavistic, with an anarchic sexual energy running through it and a startling frankness, not only about sex, but about love and relationships, gender and power … a daring write and a consuming read.”
Bidisha, writer and broadcaster
“While The Tryst offers magic and sensuality aplenty, it lays bare the violence that heteronormative couples will do to ‘others’ to keep the home system stoked. It can be read as a fable about intimacy and erotic power. Disturbingly, it can also be read as a fable about the socially established vs. the disposable.”
Vahni Capildeo, poet, Forward Prize winner
“The Tryst summons your inner whore and demands she be honoured.”
Empress Stah, cabaret theatre performer
“A Midsummer’s Night Dream meets erotic thriller in this captivating romp through the senses. … Monique Roffey perfectly captures the inner worlds of both the un-fucked housewife and the archetypal slut in this wonderful tale exploring the power of sexuality, erotic magnetism and the changing face of human relationships.”
Seani Love, Sex Worker of the Year, 2015
“Monique Roffey’s The Tryst successfully straddles mythology and erotica to create a journey towards pleasure.”
Suzanne Portnoy, author of The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker
“Sexy, lyrical and unashamed, The Tryst is a powerful slice of modern erotica which blends sexual magick with today’s hectic world of male-female relationships.”
Vina Jackson, author of Eighty Days Yellow
“Sexy as hell. A cross between the work of Angela Carter and Anaïs Nin, The Tryst weaves the urban and the modern with dark myth. Roffey is a risk taking andmasterful storyteller.”
J Malloy, author of The Story of X
“Lyrical, disturbing, erotic, The Tryst resembles the novels of Hanif Kureishi or Milan Kundera at their most subversive. It is a provocative, intellectually engaged novella, forever aware that the soma can never entirely be divorced from the psyche,”
– Jude Cook, the Times Literary Supplement
“The Tryst is no contender for the Bad Sex Award: the sexual descriptions walk the line between transcendent and plain dirty with perfect judgment. This is a tightly structured, sharp portrait of contemporary coupledom doused in sex that is hot but never sadistic or explorative. All three characters are changed by their experiences of each other and, although the sex succeeds in arousing the reader. The intellectual stimulus is the bigger turn on,”
– Jane Housham, The Guardian.
“Monique Roffey is the alchemist of sex: she names its components unflinchingly, yet creates an irresistible violent urgency. Roffey moves in so close that all is ‘cascades’ of vicious liquid, colour, smell. It is inescapable; it is stage lit; it is the money shot; it is fearless. Her lack of hesitation builds a world of sexual intensity. And yet, and yet, her prose is poetic, dreamy at times, as she weaves together mystery with the mundane and sexual ravening with ensuring love,”
– Elizabeth Spiller, The Amorist
“Mixing psychological thrills and magic realism, Roffey pushes irresistibly at the boundaries of marriage, desire and female sexuality,”
– Sharmaine Lovegrove, Elle
“It’s a tricky and delicate subject matter as many couples privately struggle with issues of sex. Roffey offers fascinating insights with this outrageously imaginative tale of untamed lust and a fantasy that quickly turns into a nightmare….The narrative switches between each character’s perspective showing how each of them frequently misinterprets the motives and responses of the others. This makes a really interesting portrait of a sexual encounter where so much is based on signals which can be horrendously misinterpreted. It also poignantly shows how the outcome of realizing sexual fantasies is far different from how we imagined.”
– Eric Karl Anderson, The Lonesome Reader
“The Tryst is an idiosyncratic beast: part literary psychodrama and part erotic misadventure, it’s neither pure fantasy nor down-and-dirty realism, but a weirdly compelling amalgam of a sexy fairytale and a portrait of a troubled marriage. …If you’re looking for egalitarian sexy times in fiction, this seems like a pretty good place to start. More interesting, though – or so we thought – was the exploration of Jane and Bill’s relationship. Roffey takes the idea of love and, like the Greeks, spits it into eros and agape (desire and possession versus unconditional and selfless); what Jane feels for Bill is agape (it’s pure, it’s adoration, it’s ‘holy’) but what Lilah represents is full-on eros. Roffey’s getting us to consider whether one relationship can accommodate both; whether love can work as a unified concept.”
– Book Munch
“This is the kind of Caribbean fiction Gabriel Garcia Marquez once wrote about – a vividness of imagination which is at once so terrible, so beautiful and so compelling that it shows you exactly how things are.”
– Kei Miller, The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion. Forward Prize short-listed.
“With House of Ashes, Monique Roffey breathes new, and desperately needed life into the narrative of war and politics. Here is a novel that is deeply, and intimately imagined, with all the great themes of love, faith, violence and death at stake on nearly ever breathtaking page.”
– Dinaw Mengestu, author, All Our Names
“Monique Roffey’s brave and loving novel will stage an insurrection in your heart. Not satisfied with being a well-researched story about rebels and hostages on a hot island — though it is that, and reads perilously close to the bone for those who may have lived through parallel events not so long ago, House of Ashes pinions its characters, and reader, in one building that is the stressful centre of violence, but also a kind of enforced retreat. Here, armoured, everyday identities are unpicked. The man of action, man of power, woman of virtue, find their own innermost longings twisting out of them like smoke under the smashed blue sky and rising like prayers for a purificatory equalization amongst the inheritors of corrupters colonial patterns and for an acknowledgement of the feminine within the male, the childlike within the hardened, the fool within the soldier, the guiding spirit within the most unhoused. Monique Roffey has an astonishing talent for self-reinvention with every book. This may be her best yet.
– Vahni Capildeo, poet, Utter
“A chilling, dark tale of an uprising gone wrong within an imagined Caribbean republic. Roffey tells this terrifying story in the simplest, clearest prose. She tackles her subject fearlessly and with enormous compassion; both breaking and melting the heart simultaneously. A beautiful, startling novel.”
– Amanda Smyth, author, A Kind of Eden
“House of Ashes is a gripping exploration of the complex dimensions of power, courage and consequences. I could not put it down.”
– Diana McCaulay, author, Huracan
“This is an incisive, courageous and necessary novel. An honest and considered critique of the post-colonial, post-independent Caribbean, carving out an uncertain future from the ruins of troubled past. In the process Roffey tells hard truths, bringing to the surface things we are yet to deal with.
– Anthony Joseph, poet, Bird Head Son
“Deploying the deep, humane wisdom that has become a hallmark of Roffey’s increasingly sure writing, the novel delivers its final, bittersweet coup with fearlessness and grace that richly satisfies,”
– Liz Jensen, The Guardian
“Roffey is an invigorating story-teller. The tense, stifling scenes within the besieged House of Power, as the hostage-takers and their hostages carve out unexpected relationships, are beautifully done and her compassion for her characters are never in doubt.”
– Claire Allfree, Metro
“Roffey’s knuckle-whitening novel goes to the heart of questions of political temptation and folly; it grips form beginning to end.”
– Ian Thompson, The Telegraph
“Roffey’s writing is raw and visceral and she thrusts her readers headlong into the very middle of the action, her pen as powerful as the butts of the guns shoved in her hostages’ backs.”
– Lucy Sholes, The Observer
“House of Ashes is a sympathetic and fresh look at what motivates young men to become radicalised. Parents and governments are indicted for leaving them vulnerable to exploitation. ….The violence is shocking, because it is realistic rather than a plot device. The terror of the hostage takers is as palpable as that of the hostages.”
– Danuta Kean, The Independent on Sunday
“ …..the force of House of Ashes, or from its powerful account of the closeness and connections between power and rebellion. “
– John Self, The Times.
“House of Ashes is as funny as it is unsettling. The novel taps into Trinidad and Tobago’s frustration with the lack of accountability for the uprising, and with the unfulfilled promise of independence.”
– David Shaftel, The Financial Times
“House of Ashes is probably best read as a meta text, a book of many tropes, some of which sit uncomfortably with others. It examines postcoloniaity, the failures of decolonisation, and the legacy of slavery ad indenturship, the caudilo or strongman/macho man charismatic leader, issues of power, violence and governance in small island states afflicted with imposed global neoliberal economics and regional drug trafficking. For Trinidadians, this ‘faction-cum-docudrama will either sink into the collective denial or be welcomed as an imaginative attempt to provide a kind of analysis of the island’s legacy of violence.”
– Simon Lee, Trinidad Guardian
“This is a well-written tale, rich in imagination and with some very insightful moments. Roffey, who won the 2013 OCM Bocas Award for Caribbean Literature, for her novel Archipelago, should expect even more kudos for another laudable piece of literary work.”
– Raoul Pantin, Trinidad Express
“The examination of Sans Amen’s political climate, and its history of quelled insurgencies, is intricately constructed, then distilled through the dissatisfaction of the island’s people. Sans Amenians are a caustic, confrontational lot, though not immune to their own cowardice and fleeting moments of grace. The author paints both the principal and unnamed characters who reside here with thoughtfulness, using her considerable boon for human portraiture to render them as real people.”
– Shivanee Ramlochan, Trinidad Guardian
“Monique Roffey’s novel, House of Ashes is a story of attempted revolution and realisation, beautifully influenced by themes of family, religion and morality…. The novel is engaging and full of suspense, with new and unpredictable developments in every chapter….Roffey has created a story that is personal and absorbing, yet distant and unthinkable…it has the ability to make her readers want to question their own perspectives on government and power.”
– Rhianna Kalloo, Culturepulse
“Moving, wise, and beautifully-written, Archipelago is a stunning achievement. Roffey’s graceful evocation of a sea odyssey builds with the rhythm of the waves to become not just one man’s personal tragedy, but – in the face of devastating climate change – everyman’s. There will be many more novels about humankind’s environmental folly. But for me, Archipelago sets the gold standard.”
– Liz Jensen, author, The Uninvited
“Archipelago is beautifully done. There’s a warmth to it, an exuberance and a wisdom, that makes the experience of reading it feel not just pleasurable but somehow instructive. It’s funny, sometimes bitingly poignant. And how well Roffey writes a male central character. A brilliant piece of storytelling.”
– Andrew Miller, Costa Prize winner, 2012
“Read this novel for its craft, its intense, elemental optimism and for the lyricism of a joyful girl-child’s discovering of the different faces of an archipelago,”
– Earl Lovelace, Commonwealth Prize Winner
“Roffey here creates an incrementally powerful reflection on grief, an acute study of a father-daughter relationship, with a compelling account of climate change and a transformative journey.”
– Anita Sethi, The Independent
“Roffey’s lexicon of loss is material and universal. The afflicted recognise its mark in each other…Archipelago evokes the pared-back rawness of being adrift, at the mercy of nature, first by accident and then by design.”
– Maria Crawford, Financial Times
“What follows is a dangerous beautiful journey through the Caribbean – evoked by Roffey in a prose-feast of flying fish and turquoise water – and a moving journey as Gavin regains his life”
– Kate Saunders, The Times
“…the strength of the novel lies in her quiet exploration of both a child and an adult’s attempts to comprehend the loss and catastrophe that nature can impose,”
– Francesca Angelini, Sunday Times
“A big-hearted Moby Dick story for our times,”
– Kapka Kassabova, The Guardian
“Archipelago is lovely: a novel full of sensual, elemental descriptions, soaked in loss and damage, and softly haunted by the Caribbean’s bloody history of slavery,”
– Claire Allfree, Metro
“Roffey writes like one who knows these waters well, their beauty and their capacity to cleanse, but also their volatility,”
– Natasha Tripney, The Observer
“It’s a powerful story of endurance and triumph in the face of adversity, and one that also offers answers to questions of how we might respond in a rapidly changing world when things start to go wrong.”
– Jim Ferguson, The Scotsman
“She captures the impotence of a man in the face of the extremes of nature quite superbly,”
– Lesley McDowell, Scotland on Sunday
“A man’s family home is destroyed by floods in Trinidad, but after it is rebuilt the nightmare continues. Roffey’s lyrical style won her accolades for The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, this is just as enchanting.”
– Elle
“You can feel the breeze on your face and you’ll be itching to dive into the green and turquoise leopard print sea,”
– Tatler
“Archipelago is a big novel – it is a journey book, a modern day, New World Odyssey where all of the rules governing human reality have been inverted by the pure, indisputable might of nature … The portrait that Roffey paints in this book, the hurt and loss that drive the journey and story forward are at once deeply personal and universal … This is a book that pulls the reader into its story, its characters and into the folds of their grief … Roffey’s skill lies in the pure humanity of the narrative.’”
– Sophia Harris, Wasafiri
“Monique Roffey’s Archipelago is a sparkling portrayal of the Caribbean, and the outer layer of the plot is a magical sea voyage…the real story, however, is a deeply moving story through grief,”
– We Love This Book
“The dramatic subject matter is treated in a subtle way and the father-daughter relationship drawn with unsentimental restraint. This is an intelligent, engaging novel distinguished by its great, though incidental, tenderness for the creatures of the natural world.”
– Sydney Morning Herald.
“..well-written and well told…Monique Roffey has a winner on her hands with Archipelago,”
– Raoul Pantin, Trinidad and Tobago Review
“Islands are everywhere in this stunningly rendered novel, reminding or teaching us anew about our individual selves against their history-mired backdrops. The long arm of human injustice, greed and excess runs on no shorter a leash here, as Gavin, Océan and Suzy dock in multiple ports to discover. Beach-combing through the sea’s washed-up treasures on one of the Los Roques islands, Gavin muses on the disturbing assortment of plastic debris and shattered coral, thinking, too, of how oil swallows up life around them, oil destroying nature. Nothing seems clear about human progress: it all glimmers, like the Sea Empress tourist ship, “grotesque and a spectacle in its own right. Archipelago’s trajectory reminds the reader in both subtle and unapologetic flourishes that through our best-laid plans for Nature, Nature herself persists. The novel is replete with achingly beautiful descriptions of the world that frames these seafarers.”
– Shivanee Ramlochan, The Trinidad Guardian
“From its opening pages, I was entranced by the world of this novel. Monique Roffey’s Trinidad is full of strife and languor, violence and also hushed moments of peace, so beautifully and lushly evoked that while I was reading Trinidad became more real for me than my own neighborhood. What a vibrant, provocative, satisfying novel–I can’t stop thinking about it.”
– Suzanne Berne, Orange Prize winner
“This is a powerful, juicy novel about the tragedy of Trinidad, one of the most beautiful places on earth. English George blindly loves it, his French wife Sabine bears its burdens of white guilt, the new black political class fails it, and violence is the inevitable result. Personal, political, physical – you feel you’ve been there.”
– Carole Angier, biographer, Jean Rhys
“Vibrant and vivid; passionate and true. This is a powerful tropical mix; a compassionate book that needed to be written,”
– Amanda Smyth, author, Black Rock
“…breaks entirely new ground. It is a major contribution to the new wave of Caribbean writing: energetic, uncompromising, bold in the choice of narrative devices and a great read.”
– Olive Senior, Commonwealth Prize winner
“Roffey’s evocation of Trinidad is extraordinary vivid, the central relationship beautifully observed…. deservedly short-listed for the Orange Prize.”
– Kate Saunders, The Times
“A rich and highly engaging novel,”
– The Guardian
“Equal love and attention go into the marriage and the country at the heart of this Orange Prize short-listed novel…It’s a book packed with meaty themes, from racism to corruption to passion and loyalty,”
– Seven, The Sunday Telegraph
“Roffey’s Orange Prize nominated book is a brilliant, brutal study of a marriage overcast by too much mutual compromise.”
– The Independent
“Monique Roffey’s superb novel shatters Caribbean clichés by depicting the explosive tensions of post-colonial Trinidad with fierce affection.”
– Metro
“A searing account of the bitter disappointment suffered by Trinidadians on securing their independence from British colonial rule and of the mixed feelings felt by a white couple who decide to stay on. An earthy, full-blooded piece of writing, steaming with West Indian heat.”
– The London Evening Standard
“…her plot engages the reader through a gradual revelation of the past – slowly forming a melancholy whole.”
– Financial Times
“Heart-rending and thought-provoking. You’ll never see the Caribbean as just another holiday destination.”
– Elle
“A beautiful, moving and haunting book.”
– Edinburgh Evening News
“A sharply observed and engrossing portrait of a marriage and a country.”
– Books Quarterly, Waterstones
“The White Woman on the Green Bicycle is a love story wrapped in Trinidad’s political drama. Secrets from a decades-long relationship are revealed as the husband reads his wife’s undelivered letters to Eric Williams, the charismatic leader of the island nation in its infancy.”
– Pride Magazine
“In eloquent, sometimes poetic, always passionate prose, Roffey paints an intriguing and sometimes disturbing picture of Trinidad in the turbulent post-colonial era. Roffey leads unerringly into the dark areas of slavery’s shadow: when racism begets racism, it’s time for the hard questions, and this riveting story of a marriage as it crash-lands asks them fearlessly,”
– Sharon Maas, Caribbean Beat.
“The White Woman on the Green Bicycle is more than just fantasy and entertainment. Behind all this fun, Roffey, ambitiously, has done something remarkable. She manages to deal with all the major social problems besetting contemporary Trinidad in recent years via the prism of two characters who feel at odds with the environment.”
– Andre Bagoo, Caribbean Review of Books
“The Age of Innocence in West Indian fiction is over…..Roffey captures Trini irreverence perfectly,”
– Simon Lee, The Trinidad Guardian
“…daring to speak about an unraveling as it happens…”
– Cedriann J. Martin, The Trinidad Express
“Roffey undertakes an examination of the Trinidad & Tobago’s Independence Movement and, a generation later, its bitter fruit. ….A millennial portrait of a new republic, WWOGB is a harsh judgment on the failure of the independence experiment.”
– Lisa-Allen Agostini, co-editor, Trinidad Noir
“Days after reading it, I can still smell Trinidad,”
– Sunday Telegraph
“…and epic and strikingly original love story set in hot, steamy Trinidad,”
– Australian Women’s Weekly
“This unforgettable love story will enchant the reader.”
– Daily Liberal
“..a charming tale that succeeds on many levels with a cast of whimsical characters, atmosphere, intrigue and a jolt of sweet and sour themes.”
– Courier Mail
“With great characters and a unique story, she draws an intriguing portrait of a marriage that resonates, yes, long after the last page is turned.”
– Sunday Times
“Roffey creates a terrific sense of place: heat and languor, politics and passion, tropical smells and the heady music of the local patois, all combine to make the novel memorable.”
– The Age
“Roffey combines a wonderful sense of place – heat, languor, tropical scents and patois – with politics and passion for a remarkable read.”
– Sunday Tasmanian
‘Monique Roffey’s book is incredibly brave, funny and heartwarming. Where most writers would fear to tread in fiction, Monique has kicked the doors open with an honest memoir about the sexual and emotional journey she went on. Writing about the (sometimes uncomfortable) truths in her soul-searching, Monique shows that being open and upfront about sex can be an empowering thing. A lovely, touching, beautifully written book; recommended.’
– Zoe Margolis, aka The Girl with the One Track Mind
‘Monique’s book was a huge affirmation for me as a mature and fully active, sexual woman. Being a sex writer myself I know how difficult it is to convey the subtle dynamics of romantic relationships and sexual adventures through words on a page, yet Monique has managed to do just that in a bold, courageous and uncensored way…Monique’s writing style is intimate and engaging and reveals a deep vulnerability, as well as an infectious enthusiasm for living life to the full.’
– Kavida Rei, author, Tantric Sex
‘Brave and poignant. Read it and if you’re not churned inside out, you may consider yourself dead.’’
– Kapka Kassabova, author, Twelve Minutes of Love
‘An intelligent, dark, thorny book about sex.’
– Robert Rowland Smith, author, Breakfast with Socrates
‘Amazingly honest, very well written and a fascinating window on women’s sexuality’
– Rebecca Frayn
‘This book is astoundingly brave. It is funny. It speeds along. It has magic at its heart – that indefinable sliver of human warmth and hope that all the best, most searching memoirs seem to have. Moreover, Roffey’s somehow irrepressible willingness to share begins to seem generous, infectious even….I found myself knocked off course in a rather moving and indescribable way….she actually makes a writerly choice to remain ‘blind’ because ‘I wanted to turn darkness into prose’. Well good. Because isn’t that exactly what we need in writers – the brightest, most adventurous and self-scrutinizing ones – like Roffey – to do: to take the darkness and turn it into something so blazingly alive that it can shine a light on the rest of us?’
– Julie Myerson, The Observer
‘Less of Belle de Jour’s lifestyle raunchiness and far more honesty about sex feels – as opposed to how it looks…Roffey’s writing soars when she’s describing the intense grief she experienced at the end of a great love affair that prompted her journey…Roffey is both wise and moving when examining her desire for romance: her propensity for creation myths in relationships; and how her ex ‘had a talent for love’…Roffey asks serious questions about what place sex has in modern relationships, and is blessed with an admirable honesty.’
– Alexandra Heminsley, Independent on Sunday
‘Her account of her sexual odyssey which moves from sex clubs in French libertine resorts to tantric sex workshops in Somerset is called With the Kisses of his Mouth (a quote from the Song of Solomon). It is a vivid, entertaining and unexpectedly moving read about a middle aged woman’s attempt to find enlightenment through sex – a kind of Eat, Shag, Love. It is not coldly erotic like Catherine M, or unrepentantly horny like Samantha from Sex and the City. It is a good deal more rueful and emotional.’
– Daisy Goodwin, The Sunday Times
‘She trawls Craig’s List for casual encounters, the “zipless fuck” that Jong brought into the light in her 1973 classic Fear of Flying. But in an age when it’s so easy to have a zipless fuck, the appeal soon palls. Roffey heads off into new territory, exploring her sexuality and ultimately her humanity in a series of tantric workshops and therapies. She quite rightly points out that we are willing to develop our skills in most aspects of our lives except sex and love. She describes her experiences at workshops, in therapy, massage classes and sex parties in a skeptical and humorous way; much of this book is very funny. Roffey bravely stretches the boundaries of what she’s comfortable with and gradually becomes profoundly sexually self-aware and, she hopes, will be better at loving in the future.’
– Rebecca Loncraine, The Independent
‘A brave and audacious exploration of female sexuality…The writing is spirited, candid, sometimes humorous, definitely full-on and, as a woman’s response to sexuality, refreshing. She asks questions about love, sex and relationships that we have all asked – but rarely gone to such lengths to find answers to.’
– Carol Drinkwater, Mslexia
‘With the Kisses of His Mouth provides a fascinating perspective on attitudes to sex in the twenty-first century and questions what is socially acceptable for an open-minded person to be getting up to. Indeed, the reader may come to think that we all need our own sexual odyssey… of some sort.’
– Clara Robinson, Erotic Review
‘Novelists such as Roffey and Rupert Thompson have been pulling the curtain back on their own lives and giving us a glimpse into their private worlds. In With the Kisses of his Mouth Roffey describes, with an often startling candour the fall-out from her partner’s infidelity and her quest to discover her own sexuality….In both cases, I’m sure, there is a limit to what the writers reveal. But there doesn’t seem much coyness in either book….Perhaps there is no such thing as too much information. We might not like all of it, we might find some of it offensive, or in bad taste, or just lacking in manners, but what’s the alternative? What’s the greater danger? Exposing everything, or exposing nothing?’
– Teddy Jamieson, Herald Scotland
‘From Craig’s List to tantra classes, this is a heartbreaking and at times explicit memoir of rediscovery.’
– Elle
‘In a quest to heal her broken heart, Monique Roffey started seeking answers to some powerful questions. Does ruling out love mean ruling out sex? Can you have great sex without love? Can great love survive without sex?.’
– Psychologies Magazine
“Roffey is good at writing about raw emotions and is engaging as she embarks on her pleasure quest.’
– Metro
“This book sharpens the appetite for life.”
– Lindsay Clarke, author, The Chymical Wedding
“A mellow tale… Roffey is razor sharp on the daily humdrum….sun dog is a striking and original first novel.”
– Dazed and Confused
“Few first novels have a protagonist so instantly unforgettable as August Chalmin…Roffey’s writing is as compelling and beguiling as her central character. There will be few first novels this year that have the same sensuous appreciation of language…this is a debut novel much to be admired.”
– Waterstone’s Books Quarterly
“Roffey strikingly captures her protagonist, deftly portraying his angst in this fascinating study of self-knowledge and love. An excellent debut.”
– Good Book Guide
“A warm, erotic novel.”
– The Big Issue
“This is an extraordinary first novel. Buy it then tell your friends to do the same.”
– Heat
“Enchanting, Roffey handles this modern-day metamorphosis beautifully; her imagery is original, the story completely beguiling.”
– Eithne Farry, Daily Mail
“Full of sensuality…a delightfully unusual debut.”
– Katie Owen, The Times
“It’s rare to read a novel with such great heart.”
– Hannah Pool, The Guardian
“With its salivating fetish for sensuous Italian food, Roffey’s comic magical-realist fable about the importance of self-knowledge and human connections is like a kind of west London hybrid of Joanna Harris’ Chocolat and Hans Christian Anderson: completely whimsical, but also temptingly more-ish.”
– The Independent
“Roffey’s debut is quite magical…a brilliant idea, brilliantly executed.”
– The Mirror
“Enchanting.”
– Elle