'Myself and Hugh . . . We're taking a break.'

'A city-with-fancy-food sort of break?'

If only.

Amy's husband Hugh says he isn't leaving her.

He still loves her, he's just taking a break - from their marriage, their children and, most of all, from their life together.

Six months in South-East Asia. And nothing she says can stop him.

But when does a break become a break-up?

For a lot can happen in six months. And it's enough to send Amy and her family of gossips, misfits and troublemakers teetering over the edge.

When Hugh returns, if he returns, will he be the same man she married?

Will Amy be the same woman?

Because if Hugh is on a break from their marriage, then isn't she?
_____________

'Mercilessly funny' The Times

'Just brilliant' Sunday Times

'I laughed . . . I cried' Daily Mail

'Full of darkness and light, this is Keyes at her classic and most brilliant best' Red

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

Impeccably researched and seductively readabletells the story of Sam Sharpes revolution manqué, and the subsequent abolition of slavery in Jamaica, in a way thats acutely relevant to the racial unrest of our own time. Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls Rising

The final uprising of enslaved people in Jamaica started as a peaceful labor strike a few days shy of Christmas in 1831. A harsh crackdown by white militias quickly sparked a full-blown revolt, leaving hundreds of plantation houses in smoking ruins. The rebels lost their daring bid for freedom, but their headline-grabbing defiance triggered a decisive turn against slavery.

Island on Fire is a dramatic day-by-day account of these transformative events. A skillful storyteller, Tom Zoellner uses diaries, letters, and colonial records to tell the intimate story of the men and women who rose up and briefly tasted liberty. He brings to life the rebellions enigmatic leader, the preacher Samuel Sharpe, and shows how his fiery resistance turned the tide of opinion in London and hastened the end of slavery in the British Empire.

Zoellners vigorous, fast-paced account brings to life a varied gallery of participantsThe revolt failed to improve conditions for the enslaved in Jamaica, but it crucially wounded the institution of slavery itself. Fergus M. Bordewich, Wall Street Journal

Its high time that we had a book like the splendid one Tom Zoellner has written: a highly readable but carefully documented account of the greatest of all British slave rebellions, the miseries that led to it, and the momentous changes it wrought. Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains