Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an electronic copy to read in exchange for an honest review.

Oh this was a heartbreaker - but so worth it. There is nothing happy in this book, but it is still one of the best books I have ever read. Through multiple points of view, we follow Lala and her family as she navigates trauma, life, and love.

How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House is a compelling debut novel by Cherie Jones.
The novel opens with a cautionary tale, told by Wilma to her granddaughter Lala, about what happens to girls who disobey their mothers and can't avoid temptation.
Set in a small fictional town in Barbados where the wealthy come to vacation and are served by the natives of the island. Lala lives on the beach with her husband and braids the hair of tourists. Her husband is a thief. It begins with a burglary gone wrong which sets off a terrible chain of events.
This is a story of the locals; their ongoing issues with race, class, hardship, multigenerational abuse and finally isolation from love.
Many difficult moments, some incredibly heartbreaking scenes, but I liked seeing Lala's story given a voice.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins Canada for an arc of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

The word that comes to mind when exploring the pages of Cherie Jones’s How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House is visceral. Set in Barbados and featuring characters from all walks of life – tourists, thieves, criminals, con-artists, prostitutes, doting parents, fearful children, humbled doctors – the novel transports readers to the world of Baxter Beach. In the novel, Baxter’s Beach, labeled as ‘Paradise’ by locals and tourists alike, reveals itself as the opposite. Three generations of women’s stories are told in the novel, and with each layer something is added that negates this beach town in Barbados as a paradise. The women whose stories are most focused on in the story are Mrs. Whalen—the islander wife of an English tourist—Wilma, Lala, and Lala’s deceased mother. Be forewarned, this novel is very much Rated R, and some trigger warnings include: rape, death of a minor, rape of a minor, assault, murder, and more. However, Jones should be complimented for the way she approaches such dark and unsettling topics. She treats these issues pragmatically, adding the details of these topics in a manner that sheds light on the story, rather than for shock-value.
Generational trauma is a central theme in Jones’s writing, primarily through the relationships between Lala and the women in her family. The novel begins with Wilma, Lala’s grandmother and guardian, telling her the story of the one-armed sister. The story becomes the key to the novel—Jones takes bits and pieces of the story’s characters to enhance her novel’s plot. Another theme that runs throughout the novel and directly engages with the theme of generational trauma is oppression: the oppression of people of colour, class oppression, women’s oppression, and the oppression of those with mental health problems. Jones uses the parallels between Wilma’s life and Lala’s to demonstrate how this oppression is ongoing and has entangled the families of Baxter Beach in it’s unkind grasp. Despite the sensational nature of the novel’s events, Jones’s honest and well-balanced writing and diction creates a deep and pensive story.
Jone’s storytelling abilities are most evident in her characterization. Whether it’s Lala and her husband’s, Adan, estranged marriage or Mrs. Whalen’s grief and PTSD, every characterization is expressed in a simple, poetic narrative that neither feels too little or too much. Take this exchange early in the novel, and appreciate the subtleness in Jones’s description of Lala and Adan’s relationship: “When they play this game, what Adan does is try to sing her. He tries every type of lala he can think of: soft percussive notes that stretch his throat and deeply resonant bass notes that vibrate when she touches him and barely audible sharps that hurt her ears.” Jones captures both the tenderness and tension of this difficult relationship and it’s her ability to balance darkness with softness that makes her traumatic and deeply aching debut novel such a satisfying read.
The One-Armed Sister has something for every audience. The novel is sometimes exhilaratingly quick paced, and other times it is a slow paced emotional onslaught. The character focused story-telling keeps readers invested in all of the different twists and turns. Romance, racial inequality, class differences, nostalgia, folk-tales, coming of age, motherhood, and widow-hood, are some of the themes that this novel is artfully entangled with. However, the novel closes out with a message of hope and freedom, one which creates a satisfying and realistic closure.
If you are looking for a story full of heart, blood, sweat and tears, Cherie Jones delivers exactly that, with fantastic story-telling and characterization that is sure to make How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House a recognized piece of new literature.

The prose of this book was a brutally beautiful and I was happy to include it as a spotlight title in the books section of Zoomer magazine (February print edition).

From its title to the very end, this debut novel was intriguing. Set in Barbados in the fictional place of Baxter Beach, we meet Lala and her husband Adan. Lala has a real talent for doing hair and she braids hair for the tourists. Adan on the other hand cons the tourists, steals from them and sells them drugs.

When Lala finds out she is pregnant there are hopes of this turning their lives around. Adan is not always a kind man. He can be violent and cruel. When Lala goes into labour she ends up at the wrong place at the wrong time. After the baby is born, Adan has a strong connection to her and Lala adores her. When more tragedy strikes, it sends Adan, Lala and their friend Tone spiralling and panicking. Each of them now has to make decisions that will affect all of them and Lala has hopes for getting out of this marriage.

This novel is beautifully written. I loved the use of language and Caribbean dialect. How the culture was brought into the story was also done in subtle but unmistakable ways. The story is a heavy one. Themes of marriage, crime, violence, death and grief are all part of this story. This was a wonderful debut and I look forward to reading more from Cherie Jones.

A heads up that there is a lot of domestic violence so that might be a trigger for some people.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Canada for an e-copy of this novel.

Lala, living in Barbados with her violent husband, Adan, finds herself in the middle of an unsolved murder. Fueled by Adan's violence and his relationship with her childhood friend, this book unashamedly shows the brutal face of life in one of the world's tourist destinations and its underbelly of violence.

How The One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins Canada for an opportunity to listen to How The One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House

Baxter’s Beach Barbados in the summer of 1984 where the lives of several people intersect . A story of a robbery gone bad ... the death of a new born baby .... of abuse, violence , poverty ... of love and family ... told with flashbacks and an interesting cast of characters.

What I liked :

✔️ beautiful story telling
✔️ interesting characters and a unique story
✔️ loved the cultural aspects
✔️ I did not expect this ending

There were definitely a few times during does book when I went WTF 😬 and was in shock ...

Thank you @harpercollinsca and @netgalley for a copy of How The One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones. All opinions are my own.

Strong content warnings for domestic and sexual abuse including incest mentioned off page. DM for specifics if you need them.

How The One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House was an incredible read. Told from many perspectives, it’s the story of women and their struggles in a resort town of Baxter Beach, Barbados. One of the main characters is Lala who spends her days braiding hair on the beach. Lala lives with her abusive petty criminal husband and she broke my heart. The characters in this novel were so well developed and complex and yet the plot moves along at a decent pace so you never want to put it down. Highly recommend this read if you don’t mind something heavier.

In a word, this story is gripping. From the cautionary tale of the entity that inhabits the tunnels, I was invested in how this would unfold and was not disappointed.

Jones has written a narrative that is wholly Caribbean and so familiar. The relationships, interactions, existence, friendships, families, and experiences of each and every character.

It is bursting with life, peopled with characters with attitudes that reach from the page and envelope you, with prose and dialogue that drops you right in the middle of Baxter's beach and the homes and communities of the rich and poor respectively;

the actions that lead to poor decisions, that then cascade down and outward unraveling and revealing the connections that join our players in ways known and unknown to each other.

Lala wants to lead a life her way and not how her grandmother says and when she marries Adan, along the way she wonders who he is and who she is becoming. Living a life waiting on the jaws of the law to reach them, clamping down and cutting her off from her freedom, and when tragedy strikes, Lala knows that she has to escape now before it is too late.

It is an exploration of what forces join strangers in a community, an island where there is a clear line of who has and who has to struggle, but the hand of fate will always be there to stir it all up like a good pot of Satday soup. What I could have done without is a few tropes that are too often used with respect to the Caribbean sphere. You will know when you see it.

Big ups to the narrator who definitely captured the lilt and tone of bajans.

This debut novel by Cherie Jones takes you through a roller coaster of emotions. We first hear the story of the "One-Armed Sister" from Grandma Wilma, and then dive into the real story of the women in Wilma's family in Barbados. We especially go through the struggles Lala faced. The characters go through so much such as sexual abuse, poverty, crime, prostitution, and murder. I loved the writing style and especially appreciated that the writing style for each character's point of view was different. At points I felt like someone was telling me a story. Overall, an amazing debut novel that I would highly recommend!

HOW THE ONE-ARMED SISTER SWEEPS HER HOUSE by Cherie Jones is a riveting debut novel! The story is set in Barbados and follows four people who are desperate for their lives. All the characters were extremely compelling and it was great to learn each of their backstories. I especially liked how the writing would change for each character’s point of view and we really got into how they would each think and talk. The chain of events was shocking and I read most of this book with bated breath because I was so worried for everyone. I’d definitely read Jones’s next book!