In this tough Caribbean tale, Cyan Cattlewash's world begins to fall apart when she is only a child. Nicknamed Night because she's so dark, Cyan is her father's darling girl. But then her father is executed for murdering a man that his wife had flirted with, and her sister--a bright girl who is sent away to school with every penny the family has saved--dies from a failed abortion. Cyan ends her turbulent relationship with her mother and lives alone. When she becomes pregnant by the only man she ever loved, she discovers that she can't bear the thought of being a mother, yet is terrorized by the idea of terminating the pregnancy, after what happened to her sister. Her American friend, Koko, has fled anonymity in the United States for relative fame and admiration among the people of Barbados. Through her remaining ties in the States, Koko arranges for an American woman named Amanda to adopt Cyan's baby. When the baby arrives, Cyan refuses to see her, afraid at some deep level that the baby will take hold of her battered affections, and Amanda makes preparations to leave with her newly adopted daughter. Yet Cyan can't stop thinking about her baby, and her thoughts push her to reenact the violence that she had tried to place behind her. --Susan Swartwout