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Title details for Dominoes by Phoebe McIntosh - Available

Dominoes

A Novel

by Phoebe McIntosh
ebook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
A tender and provocative debut novel about a mixed-race British woman who makes the shocking discovery in the days leading up to her wedding that her fiancé’s family may have enslaved her ancestors
“Simultaneously sweet and sobering, this is one you will not want to miss.”—Onyi Nwabineli, author of Someday, Maybe
Dominoes opens in London, twenty-nine days before a young couple’s wedding. Layla is a mixed-race woman—with a Black, Jamaican mother, and a white father she’s never met—and Andy is a white man of Scottish descent. When they first meet at a party, they can’t believe how instant their chemistry is, and how quickly their relationship unfolds. Funnily enough, they even share a last name: McKinnon.
Layla’s best friend, Sera, isn’t so sure about Andy, or the fact that her best friend is engaged a white man. As the wedding approaches, Sera prompts her friend to research her heritage more, leading Layla to make a shocking discovery: It’s extremely likely that Andy’s ancestors enslaved Layla’s in Jamaica, and that the money from that enslavement helped build his family’s wealth.
What seemed like a fairy-tale romance is suddenly derailed as Layla begins to uncover parts of her history and identity that she never imagined—or had simply learned to ignore. The process takes her to Jamaica for the first time, where she uncovers truths about her family’s history that will change the way she thinks about herself and her future. As the clock ticks down to her wedding, Layla must make a decision: commit to the man she loves or expose a shameful history that has gone unspoken for far too long.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 12, 2024

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780593596692

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780593596692
      • File size: 1018 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 29, 2024
      Playwright McIntosh debuts with a thought-provoking study of race, ancestry, and inheritance based on her one-woman play of the same name. When Layla McKinnon, who is mixed race, begins dating Andy McKinnon, who is white, their shared surname feels at first like a meet-cute in the making. But Layla’s best friend, Sera, a social justice activist, is convinced that Andy’s substantial family wealth is tied to his forebears’ history as slave owners, and that they enslaved Layla’s ancestors. After Andy and Layla get engaged to be married, Layla, haunted by Sera’s insinuations, travels to Jamaica for the first time in search of her roots. As a history teacher, she knows the outlines of Britain’s legacy of slaveholding, but she is nevertheless surprised and shaken by the extent of its ongoing economic repercussions. Her conflicted feelings of love and revulsion toward Andy and his family rouse sympathies, but the real heart of the story lies with the damage done to her decades-long friendship with Sera, who can no longer condone the impending nuptials as evidence supporting her claim continues to mount. Despite a somewhat abrupt resolution, McIntosh largely succeeds at transferring her story from stage to page. This stimulating portrayal of a fraught familial history is sure to spark debate.

    • Booklist

      March 1, 2024
      Layla's best friend, Sera, has been acting strange lately. Sera is the chief bridesmaid for Layla's wedding, but with only a few weeks until the day, she's gone quiet about plans for the bachelorette party. Layla finds out why when Sera sends her a documentary about payments to former enslavers in Britain. Layla, whose mother's side of the family is from Jamaica, had thought it was cute that she and her white fianc�, Andy, had the same last name. Now she must confront the possibility that her future husband's ancestors may have enslaved hers. Does marrying Andy mean she would betray her Black identity, as Sera seems to think? Layla reluctantly digs into her family's past while the weeks to the wedding tick down, at the same time confronting the challenges she lives with as a Londoner of mixed heritage. A stirring meditation on freedom, family, anger, and grief, McIntosh's debut chronicles Layla's struggle to fit the pieces of her life together and urgently asks whether love can truly conquer all.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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