Runner up in the Saga Literary Prize
Swimming with Fishes
Beautiful Kat Lewis, artist and daughter of the community, has always wanted a child. Kat is overjoyed when Mother Cynthy, the town herbalist, dreams about her swimming with fishes, a vision that can only mean one thing: that Kat will one day be a mother.
Tall, handsome Thornton “Ben” Benjamin, a successful Londoner in the real estate business, is on a business trip to The Meadows when he spots Kat on the beach. Despite the warnings in his head, he is irresistibly drawn to her. He pursues her, throwing caution and better judgement to the wind, and their initial friendship soon develops into a passionate romance.
But secrets remain untold between them: Kat is suffering from a chronic illness and Ben has a secret life back home. Will their love survive these revelations? Or will their relationship amount to no more than a romantic encounter under the bright Jamaican sun?
It was amazing
At its core, Swimming with Fishes is about love and the havoc it can wreak on the lives of people as they are led by their hearts. Author Rasheda Ashanti Malcolm is a master of weaving the tangled lives we lead into words. Her characters were flawed as we all are, and she wrote their flaws so well that I wanted to shake them by the shoulders at times, baffled as to their choices as if they were my own friends or family. She swept me seamlessly and breathlessly through The Meadows in Jamaica and then over to England as the story unfolded, the plot thickening to a heart-pounding pace with every chapter I read until I was left holding my breath, scrambling through the final pages to see how it would end. And I absolutely enjoyed the ride.