Dominoes: A Novel

A tender and provocative debut novel about a mixed-race British woman who makes the shocking discovery in the days leading up to her wedding that her fiancé´s family may have enslaved her ancestors Dominoes opens in London, twenty-nine days before a young couple´s wedding. Layla is a mixed-race woman-with a Black, Jamaican mother, and a white father she´s never met-and Andy is a white man of Scottish descent. When they first meet at a party, they can´t believe how instant their chemistry is, and how quickly their relationship unfolds. Funnily enough, they even share a last name: McKinnon. Layla´s best friend, Sera, isn´t so sure about Andy, or the fact that her best friend is engaged a white man. As the wedding approaches, Sera prompts her friend to research her heritage more, leading Layla to make a shocking discovery: It´s extremely likely that Andy´s ancestors enslaved Layla´s in Jamaica, and that the money from that enslavement helped build his family´s wealth. What seemed like a fairy-tale romance is suddenly derailed as Layla begins to uncover parts of her history and identity that she never imagined-or had simply learned to ignore. The process takes her to Jamaica for the first time, where she uncovers truths about her family´s history that will change the way she thinks about herself and her future. As the clock ticks down to her wedding, Layla must make a decision: commit to the man she loves or expose a shameful history that has gone unspoken for far too long.