Synopses & Reviews
The Goat Woman of Largo Bay is the first in a series of amateur detective novels. The hero, Shad, is a bartender in a fishing village in Jamaica, and acts as the unpaid sheriff. His employer, Eric Keller, is a jaded American who lost his hotel in a hurricane seven years earlier.
The novel’s action starts when Eric and Shad see movement on the island offshore and think it’s a goat. But it’s a woman, Simone, who rents the ruins of Eric’s hotel and Eric starts falling for her. She attracts the attention of the villagers. A couple shady characters “visit” her one night, but she fires her gun and scares them off. Shad visits the obeah man (the village magician) and gets a potion that she uses to protect herself further.
Simone’s brother Cameron arrives and tells them she recently lost her only child.
A former Penitentiary friend, Dollar, asks Shad, a thoroughly reformed outlaw, to report on the villagers’ political opinions. He works for an American businessman connected to the corrupt government.
Simone starts celebrating her dead daughter with nightly ceremonies, and Shad learns that her former visitors are working for Dollar and plan to harm her. Shad, Eric, Cameron and the obeah man protect her, and the obeah man causes her daughter’s ashes to fall into the sea. The intruders confess that they are working for Dollar and planning to manipulate the election in the community.
Although Simone chooses to stay on the island, a severe storm destroys her shelter and she returns to the village. The businessman is exposed in the press and Shad realizes that he will live to see Dollar another day.
Review
"Bring together a ruined hotel, a disheartened dreamer, a hard working bartender turned amateur sleuth and a mysterious beauty hiding on a tiny uninhabited island, throw in a dash of political corruption, and you have all the elements for a first class detective story, which novelist Gillian Royes certainly delivers with her novel The Goat Woman of Largo Bay. That said, the thing that makes this book impossible to put down is the author's amazing eye for the details of life in this tiny Jamaican town. How can you possibly resist a hero who cools tempers in a heated political exchange by putting on some classic Toots and the Maytals reggae music to get the vibe back on track?" —Pearl Cleage, author of Just Wanna Testify
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“Gillian Royes weaves a beautiful story…We live through Simone the journey to understand the unexplainable.” Dr. Marta Moreno Vega
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"Strong characters and vivid descriptive passages." —Kirkus Reviews
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"The writing in The Goat Woman of Largo Bay is poetic at times and the plotting of the story is more literary in its approach but still leads to a tense climax that will have the reader engrossed to the end." —New York Journal of Books
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"A strong debut... I look forward to following the adventures of Shad and the inhabitants of Largo Bay." —Executive producer of Precious
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"An irresistable character is born in The Goat Woman of Largo Bay and Royes wonderfully blends suspense and the soul of the island in this smart debut." —Jamaican.com
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"Gillian Royes weaves
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[Royes] does an outstanding job of creating a small Jamaican village – it is so vivid that the reader feels part of the environment – and deftly shows the social and political life on the island. The novel is an absorbing read and one that won’t be forgotten quickly.
–Barbara Cothern, Portland Book Review
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"Gillian Royes weaves
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"Gillian Royes weaves
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"Gillian Royes weaves
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"Gillian Royes weaves beautiful story." —Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, author of When the Spirits Dance Mambo
Synopsis
The Goat Woman of Largo Bay begins the detective series featuring Shad, a bartender in a fishing village in Jamaica, who is the community problem solver and right hand of Eric, an American who owns the bar and a hotel left in ruins by a hurricane.
When Shad sees movement on the island offshore, he thinks it’s just a goat. But it turns out to be Simone, an American who has run away from her professional and personal life in the U.S., an intriguing woman who captures Eric's heart. Always keeping his ear to the ground, Shad discovers that a gunshot heard near Simone’s place late one night isn’t exactly friendly fire, but tied to a plot to harm Simone and ultimately manipulate local elections. But why does someone want to harm Simone? And what does she have to do with the elections? Only Shad can find out.
An irresistible character is born in The Goat Woman of Largo Bay and Royes wonderfully blends suspense and the soul of the islands in this smart debut.
About the Author
Gillian Royes was born in Kingston, Jamaica and spent her childhood in a house overlooking the harbor. That experience-the presence of water, passing fishermen, sunrises over the surrounding hills-colored her life and her later work. She attended Colorado College in Colorado Springs, and later went on to the University of Wisconsin and Emory University, where she gained a doctorate in American Studies.
Since then, she has worked in the Caribbean as an author, newspaper columnist, editor and entrepreneur, and in the United States as a communications consultant and university lecturer. Her first book was Business is Good, about a historical Trinidadian corporation. Her second book, Sexcess: The New Gender Rules at Work, appeared in 2004. The Goat Woman of Largo Bay is her first work of fiction.