Set in Barbados in the 1980s, this unrelentingly grim novel has every kind of male violence to women as well as to children. I was very conscious from the start of a patriarchal society, the inferior status of women and their own low expectations. The novel’s focus is on poor, local people who live close to an imagined Baxter’s Beach frequented by wealthy tourists.

We meet Lala and learn how her life experiences are a reflection of those of her dead mother and still living grandmother. The stories of Lala and her family are very moving and had more than enough grief and violence for me! I really felt for them all and it was clear how their life experiences had affected each of them.

We meet other characters and learn something of all their backstories too but for me, though I certainly wanted to know what happened to them all (and a great deal did) this novel seemed so action packed with awful events that I became almost anaesthetised by the end. Horrendous things happened to such a range of individuals too. It was unrelenting and I ceased to feel pain.

I’ve still given this 4*. It is well written and powerful, and I’m certainly glad I read it. Some of the characters will stay with me for a long time but something prevented it from being a 5 * for me.