Cursed daughtersOyinkan Braithwaite (Doubleday). This moody, gripping novel, set in Lagos, weaves together the stories of three women who grew up believing they were cursed due to the adultery of a common ancestor. The novel begins with the suicide by drowning of one of the women, whose death is seen as an “inevitable consequence” of the actions of her predecessor. Shortly after the woman's funeral, her cousin gives birth to a daughter who bears such a striking resemblance to the deceased that some in the family mistake her for reincarnation. Following the protagonists' attempts to escape the fate of generations of women before them, Braithwaite explores the possibility of personal freedom in a society still bound by tradition, prejudice and superstition.
Swamp QueenAnna North (Bloomsbury). In this environmentally oriented novel, Agnes, a forensic anthropologist, is asked to identify the body of a woman found in an English moor. The perfectly preserved body turns out to be more than two thousand years old. While trying to find out more about the woman's death, Agnes faces obstacles from a peat mining company and a group of environmentalists occupying the site in protest. In the novel, Agnes's life alternates with that of a woman, a Celtic Druid, who decides to form an alliance with a Roman settlement; additional interludes are voiced by moss connecting them. Agnes's investigation brings new attention to the world around her, and the novel's sensibility reflects the peat organisms themselves, which, as the character explains, are “interconnected not only in space but also in time.”
