Carina has headed to Jamaica to spend the summer caring for the children of a high profile family, the Halls; she's also trying to reinvent herself. But what starts as a perfect summer escape quickly changes and Blackbead House starts to reveal a more sinister side, one that could halt Carina's reinvention before it's really begun.
My first read of 2025 (and actually my final read of 2024!), Honeysuckle & Bone is a book that transports you effortlessly to Jamaica and you can feel the warmth of the breeze and the smell of the honeysuckle wafting off the page. The book is rich in Jamaican culture and Carina, a Jamaican American, is quick to discover that she has a lot to learn. You realise from the start that she is hiding something big, that she's running from something and trying to start afresh but the truth and the lies becomes tangled ... and then there's the duppy which seems intent on scaring her at every opportunity. What Tobias does so well is keep the reader hanging: you know something has happened, you just don't know what and it leaves you desperate to find out - for me, this definitely gave the book that 'just one more chapter' feel.
