Sugar Mill Stories

Book excerpt: On a small Caribbean island, Will Mattison controls everything, even the death and interment of his son-in-law, Charles Collier. Ava Collier, Charless mom, arrives on the island for the funeral and soon understands that she must stay to uncover the truth about her sons death and reclaim his ashes from Mattisons three-hundred-year-old sugar mill. Allies emerge to aid Ava in her questa Rasta boardwalk bum, an aboriginal mystic in the rainforest, a crusading radio-station owner, and Anole, a dark young man named for a climbing lizard. What Ava learns from these islanders and others will change her forever, and the sugar mill becomes her powerful symbol of endurance.