Lime Tree Can’t Bear Orange
by AMANDA SMYTH

Men will want you like they want a glass of rum. One man will love you. But you won’t love him. You will destroy his life. The one you love will break your heart in two.

So says the local soothsayer when predicting Celia’s future. Raised in the tropics of Tobago by an aunt she loves and an uncle she fears, Celia has never felt that she belonged. When her uncle—a man the neighbors call Allah because he thinks himself mightier than God—does something unforgivable, Celia escapes to the bustling capital city.

There she quickly embraces her burgeoning independence, finding a job and putting down roots. Her search for a place to call home is soon complicated by an affectionate friendship with William, a caring gardener, and a strong sexual tension with her employer. All too quickly, Celia finds herself trapped between the man who offers her passion and the one who offers his heart.

Deftly exploring the rush of first love and one woman’s search for her identity set against the lush landscape of the Caribbean, this is a vivid, intensely moving novel from an emerging talent.

“A powerful cocktail of heat and beautiful coolness, written in heady, mesmerizing, yet translucent prose that marks Smyth a born novelist.”
—Ali Smith, author of The Accidental

AMANDA SMYTH’s short stories have been published in New Writing 12, The London Magazine, Firsthand, and New Voices. She lives in England.