Listen, once I read the synopsis I knew I had to read about this ferocious woman of many years. A story about the land ownership in rural Jamaica infused with a little magical realism? Sign me up! I didn’t quite know what to expect and some trigger warnings would have been nice. The story went left quick! Miss Pauline dealt with a lot of things in her 99 years. I was wondering was Miss Pauline really losing her mind after all of these years? Who is Turner Buchanan and what does this backra house have to do with it? What has Miss Pauline done and how is she going to right her wrongs? Then it finally came together with a beautiful ending. It definitely made me contemplate my own mortality. Will I be blessed to make it so many years like Miss Sinclair? If so, it’s hard to imagine what life is like when you’ve outgrown most of the people you once loved and cared about. Who will inherit my things? My family? My found family? (I loved Mummi and Lamont’s relationship.) How far will I go to ensure that I protect what’s mine? This book had me thinking about all of the things. I would definitely recommend.

A House for Miss Pauline is a page turner. I always wonder about the house on the hill and how people in small rural area of Jamaica acquired them. A House for Miss Pauline is one of countless stories of how a woman got “that house.” At almost one hundred, Miss Pauline is awakened with a fervent desire to tell her life story. One of the things I love is old people telling it all. Whether it is good or bad, they lived long enough to acknowledge and accept their decisions. As expected, I knew she had secrets that would not be good, but as a reader, I felt indifferent. What can you do to an old woman who is ready to meet her maker? The history of plantation owner offspring story has never been told like this. It makes me think about my own lineage and if I would want to know the other side. It took two second for me to realized I would not want to. However, the author made me change my mind. I understood Miss Pauline stand on the house. This is a book I want to chat with others about.

The very old Miss Pauline Sinclair has lived in her stone house in Mason Hall, Jamaica, for many years, but has been troubled by noises it makes each night.

With her 100th birthday fast approaching, she wakes up one day, and knows that her time is ending very soon. She convinces her granddaughter Justine to come to Jamaica, and once there, gets the younger woman to find a man's family for her. The man's name is Tyler Buchanan, and Mrs. Pauline knows much more about him than she has ever revealed to anyone.

What follows is Miss Pauline remembering her childhood, her fierce protection of herself, and how she came to live in the stone house, which she had built from the crumbling ruins of a plantation on her land.

With the help of a local teenager, Lamont, Mrs. Pauline uses what Justine has found to track down any living relatives of Tyler Buchanan, and during this process, discovers more about her family and the Buchanans that she ever expected.

This novel was outstanding. It's funny, sad, profound, and has an absolutely captivating protagonist in Miss Pauline.

Pauline is fierce in her love and her desire to protect what is hers. She's also held secrets about herself for years, and whether the house truly was speaking or not, she is impelled finally to lay out the truth and deal with the consequences.

Miss Pauline has lived an eventful life, and parts were sad and distressing, but other parts were full of love and happiness. Her lifelong friendship with Zepha was critical to her, and gave her support when she needed it. And though Miss Pauline's own relationship with her own daughter isn't great, I loved her relationship and care for Lamont, a boy who proved to be incredibly kind and tolerant of Miss Pauline's often unexpected demands.

The story is moving, and such a pleasure. I read and listened to this novel, and the narrator, Sasha Frost , does a fantastic job of bringing the text to life, and inhabiting Miss Pauline. Frost moves smoothly between narration to the local dialect, and to American accents. Miss Pauline is a force to reckon with, and Sasha Frost beautifully conveys the proud, tough woman that she is.

Thank you to Netgalley, Algonquin Books and to Hachette Audio for this ARC in exchange for my review.

Ninety-nine-year-old Miss Pauline Evadne Sinclair, a resident of the small village of Mason Hall, St. Mary parish, Jamaica, takes the noises she hears at night—whispers she believes are coming from the shifting stones her house is made of—stones extracted from the ruins of a white slaveholder's home—as an omen signaling that her time on earth will soon come to an end. Miss Pauline has led an eventful life and has braved many storms, but she has held her own and lived life on her own terms. Though she lives alone, she has a lifetime of memories—some happy and others not—that keep her company, among which are secrets that have haunted her for most of her adult life. Believing she doesn't have much time left, Miss Pauline decides the time has come to find the people she has wronged and confess. She engages Lamont, a local teenager, and her U.S.-based granddaughter, Justine, to help her in her venture. The narrative follows Miss Pauline as she recalls the significant events and people that have defined her life while embarking on a journey to confront her demons and own up to her wrongdoings—an endeavor that will lead to revelations she could not have imagined.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading A House for Miss Pauline by Diana McCaulay. A well-structured narrative, an interesting cast of characters and strong character development make for an engrossing read that revolves around themes of family and community, resilience, racial identity and much more. The vivid imagery and descriptive writing transport the reader to Mason Hall, Jamaica. Miss Pauline is an admirable protagonist - brave and resilient - and I thought the author has done a brilliant job of not only capturing her personality, thoughts and emotions but also life in a small Jamaican village from the lens of our protagonist. The element of magical realism was well embedded in the story and the author deftly incorporates the history of the village and the legacy of colonialism and slavery in Jamaica into the narrative establishing how the same shapes the lives of our characters. I enjoyed Miss Pauline’s interactions with Lamont and loved how they grew to trust one another. The author injects a fair share of lighter moments into the narrative. I particularly enjoyed Miss Pauline’s experience with the internet/social media which was both realistic and amusing. I did wish Justine had been featured more in the narrative, but I was satisfied with how the story gradually unfolds. The pacing does falter in parts, but read with a bit of patience, this novel is certainly a rewarding read.

Do read the exquisitely penned Author’s Note where she discusses the people, events and places that inspired this work of fiction.

Many thanks to Algonquin Books for the digital review copy of this novel via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I loved Diana McCaulay’s wonderful protagonist, Miss Pauline, a 99-year-old woman who has lived her whole life in the Jamaican country village of Mason Hall. In the weeks before her 100th birthday, the stones of her house begin to move at night and speak to her, not only disturbing her sleep but roiling her conscience. She has lived her whole life by her own rules, not an easy thing for a Black woman in the 20th century and a Jamaican elder in the 21st century. And her conscience is clear with respect to the laws she has broken and the taboos she has violated. But there are also compromises she has made that go against the grain of her moral fiber, and the stones are demanding a reckoning. She dreads that reckoning, and she avoids and courts it by turns. She knows that she will never be at peace until she atones for the harm she has caused others, but she is pragmatic enough to know that the atonement may destroy her and everything she has built in her life.

Legacy is a bright thread woven into the fabric of McCaulay’s story. Not only Miss Pauline’s legacy, but the legacy of slavery in Jamaica and worldwide—and not only the physical legacy embodied in land, property, and wealth, but the spiritual legacy that inhabits the souls of all descendants of slavery—descendants of the enslavers and well as of the enslaved. The competing claims of ancestry grow in breadth and depth for Miss Pauline, and the clear-eyed wisdom and regret she brings to her life’s reckoning offer a fragile hope for healing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for providing access to an advance copy.

I loved this book. This is a story of an elderly woman wanting to put things right before she dies and it was so authentic. It takes place in Jamaica and the author uses the local dialect a lot. It took a couple of chapters for me to get used to it but I found that it really helped for an immersive reading experience.

I loved our titular character, who is almost 100 years old. Miss Pauline was such a formidable woman, building her own house as well as growing and selling her ganja to help raise her family. Nothing in life came easy to her but she has the strength to fight for herself and her loved ones. We are told about Miss Pauline's early life and what clearly made her who she is.

There are many amazing characters in this book and every single one of them was wonderfully drawn. The beautiful writing took me away, the seamless narrative wove the past and present together and I loved the character-building. Miss Pauline and also learns to make a new friend in 15-year-old Lamont and I was enamoured with this budding relationship. This is a story I won't soon forget.

This novel focuses on a strong female protagonist, 99-year-old Pauline Sinclair, whom the reader will not soon forget.

Pauline has spent her entire life in Mason Hall, a rural Jamaican village. She believes she is not long for the world when the stones of her house begin to shift and she hears voices which she thinks are telling her “there’s atonement to be made”: “mebbe me can set tings right before ma time come.” As she considers what she must do, she reflects on her life and so the reader learns about her past. Self-educated, she raised two children with her beloved Clive and supported her family by becoming a ganja farmer. But there are secrets she has kept hidden from everyone and these are the ones she must now reveal to those she feels she has wronged. With the help of her granddaughter Justine and Lamont, a local teenager, she finds these people to make amends but also ends up discovering much she did not know.

It’s impossible not to like Pauline. Fiercely independent, she does not allow anyone to tell her how to live. She understands that many would dismiss her because she can be perceived as “Black, female, old, rural, foreign, poor, powerless, friendless, uneducated,” but she demands the respect she believes she deserves; certainly the last four adjectives do not apply to her. Even as a young girl, she was defiant and took decisive action against a predatory man, leaving a strong message: “That is for me an evry odda girl you ever put you nasty, dutty hand on.” Her life has not been easy, but she persevered and became a community builder and elder. Though not formally educated, she is very intelligent and thoughtful, reflecting on her own actions and on the legacy of slavery in Jamaica.

Though fierce and feisty, there is a softer side to Pauline. Her granddaughter thinks she shares the same hard heart as her grandmother, but Pauline counters, “’Ma heart not hard but ma spine strong. Sometime folks mix up them two tings.’” She does indeed show her heart in her interactions with others, especially in her relationship with Lamont. She sees his vulnerability behind his exterior and virtually adopts him as family. She also has a sense of humour, taking pride in her ability to be as foulmouthed as anyone: “If this man thinks he can win a swearing contest, he’s mistaken.”

The book examines the complex history of colonialism and slavery. Pauline uses stones from the old plantation mansion to build her home and then others in the village do as well. Building homes from the stones enslaved ancestors used to build the backra house is a symbolic reclamation of what was stolen from them and a proclamation that, though the white slave owner is gone, they have survived: “Backra house, the slavery ruin in the forest, where people, her people, her ancestors, toiled and died – no, were murdered – yet became a sanctuary for her.”

Pauline thinks about the meaning of land and its ownership: “Land is what bring the white people here an what mek them capture the Black people an force them clear it an plant it.” She decides that “Home . . . is the land. Not the house. The land will never turn against her.” Land for her is not a commodity; it’s the place that has shaped her identity. But to be at peace she wishes to “settle for herself the question of who owns the land on which her house sits.” Others may have ownership papers for the land but doesn’t her and her ancestors’ intimate and historical connection to the land give her some right to it?

Pauline and other characters speak in Jamaican patwa. This adds realism, but I did sometimes experience some difficulty with some words. I think listening to an audiobook version read by someone familiar with the language would be a good experience.

4.5

I was hesitant. How can I possibly relate to an almost, but not quite, hundred year-old Jamaican women in the middle of nowhere? This book was on my shelf to be reviewed by the release date and time was running low. Having just read a nonfiction book partly about slaves in Jamaica, I wanted to dive into a beloved series or and familiar author, something lighthearted. This did not seem like any of those. I had the kindle book, but when I saw the audiobook available, I grabbed it, both reading parts and listening to parts. I find that audiobooks can often get me in to a book that is hard to get in to or even start. I’m so glad I took the chance!

Miss Pauline is a remarkable woman! The story goes between modern day when she is trying to get her affairs in order and flash backs to different key points in her life. Many parts of her life were distressing and I was nervous to hear/read about some of them, but Miss Pauline is the strongest woman ever, or possibly following right behind her friend Zepha. Her experiences were heartbreaking and heartwarming and it’s amazing to think that there are people living who are just a generation away from slavery. Though I have had experience living in places without many modern conveniences, it is also amazing to see how “off the grid” she lives or has lived, not feeling the need to use new conveniences that became available throughout her lifetime. It was entertaining, however, to experience her first use of a smartphone, the internet, and other technology, as well as exposure to places that she has never been.

I highly recommend the audio version of this book. What sounds like a British woman in the introduction, speaks for Miss Pauline and the other Jamaicans in a convincing way that the book doesn’t capture. It is interesting how some words are spelled to capture the dialect but were pronounced in the English standard way and other words written as the King’s English are read much differently but I’ve never are not, even though the accent is consistent with the narrator. I didn’t get nearly the same experience reading parts that I naturally read with my own dialect and miss out on much of the flavor of the story. The narrator also does a good job of the American accent for the several American characters. The only drawback is that I wasn’t completely happy with the ending. It was a bit tentative and seemed like it needed an epilogue.

Thank you to Diana McCaulay NetGalley, Algonquin Books, and Hachette Audio for providing me with a free advanced copies of this ebook and audiobook for my unbiased review.
#AHouseforMissPauline #NetGalley

I know it’s just me but i struggled with the writing of this book and just couldn’t get into it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review

I received a copy of the book "a House for Miss Pauline" from NetGalley. Miss Pauline is almost 100 years old and living in Jamaica. She lives in a very old stone house and recently she is hearing voices coming through the old stones. She has met a young man that has been helping around her home. She has had a long life filled with some good memories but some are secrets she has kept for decades. She is happy to have her granddaugher visit who comes with sad news about Pauline's daughter. She wonders if her granddaughter will hear the voices too.
At one time in her life in the early 1980s a man comes to her home claiming he has inherited the land and informs her she must leave. Pauline may have to take measures to protect the only home she has known that leads to her keeping secrets. When the daughter of this man arrives to the Island will Miss Pauline share a secret she has kept? A good read. Do want to give anyspoilers but I found myself rooting for MIss Pauline.

I struggled to follow the story due to the heavy use of Patwa, which made it difficult for me to stay engaged. There were also many side characters introduced, but I wasn’t sure how they contributed to the narrative. However, I appreciated that the book is loosely based on the author’s life and ancestors—if I understood Patwa better, I might have continued reading.

I had high hopes for this book based on the reviews but it fell flat for me. I am not sure why but i couldnt get into this and it took a long time just to finish.

I really enjoyed this book. It kept me engaged and it only took a few days to read. I think this is going to be a good book club option for several clubs. I plan recommending to my book friends and I look forward to reading more by this author.