A restless New York artist searching for purpose returns to Barbados and stumbles into the role of activist in this scathingly funny and brilliantly observed satire about privilege, family discord, and performative do-gooding.

Dark, lanky, and bald, New Yorkraised photographer Sabre Cumberbatch cant tell if shes highly talented or just highly Instagrammable. Up to here with art critics and their gaseous praise, Sabre returns to Barbados, her childhood island home, to water her roots. She needs to quell self-doubt by doing somethinganythingprofoundly important.

Welcoming her with bejeweled open arms is her aunt Aggie, a fearsome high-society attorney eager to show off her famous American niece. When Sabre witnesses Aggie unleash her wrath on the household staff over a minor mistake, Sabre finds her cause. During an interview for a puff piece about art, Sabre goes off-script and takes a righteous stand against the tyranny of the ruling classstarting with Aggie.

Overnight, Sabre throws her family and an entire island into chaos. How many ways can the best intentions go wrong? Theyre racking up. But tingling with purpose, Sabre is counting on the ways they just might go right.

Friends since attending university in Jamaica, Lethe and Daniel have long realized they would never be good for each other. But Lethe is Daniel's muse, and theirs is a connection that proves unbreakable as they spend the next thirty years crisscrossing the Caribbean and travelling the world in search of work, love, and home. Now, Daniel has become an internationally renowned prize-winning poet, and Lethe aspires to be a writer in her own right. His invitation to her to join him at an isolated retreat, Peacock Island, gives them both a chance to reflect on the life they've shared.

The debut novel by Governor General's Literary Award-winning author Rachel Manley, The Black Peacock is the story of two unforgettable characters, adrift on the ever-changing tides of the Caribbean, who are united by something less than passion but more than love.