Sweetness in the Skin
Discover the uplifting, coming of age novel that will capture your heart in 2025
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4.1 • 8 Ratings
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
Pumkin Patterson dreams of a life beyond her Jamaican hometown. But what we dream of and where we belong aren’t always the same thing…
‘A dazzling coming-of-age novel with an unforgettable heroine’ Red
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Eleven-year-old Pumpin knows a few things:
That her mother has never loved her
That Aunt Sophie does
That baking makes everything better
And France is a long way from her Jamaican home
What Pumkin doesn’t know is:
What will happen when Aunt Sophie leaves for France
How far a mother can go to hurt a daughter
Why a secret can rot a family
That her cakes might just help save her life
Whatever happens, Pumkin knows she needs someone to love her.
But she just doesn’t know who . . .
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Praise for Sweetness in the Skin
‘Serves up a taste of Jamaica that will have you craving coconut drops, gizzada and sweet potato pudding’ The Times
‘Wonderful, tender, vivid’ Glamour
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Robinson's vivacious debut follows a Jamaican teenager who weighs her Kingston roots against the prospect of an exciting new life in France. Pumkin Patterson, 13, lives with her dressmaker grandmother Cecille, her beloved and ambitious aunt Sophie, and her abusive, alcoholic mom Paulette. After Cecille dies suddenly and Sophie moves out, Pumkin sets her sights on following her aunt to Paris. To do so, she must gather enough money to pay a private language academy for lessons that will help her pass the French school entrance exam. With no hope of help from her mother, who disappears for days at a time, Pumkin draws on her talent for baking, selling her wares at school and at a local shop. After she befriends a wealthy classmate at the academy, her mother and an old friend from her neighborhood painfully and derisively label her "stoosh" (pretentious), prompting her to hide her new life from her home life and vice versa. Robinson's clear eye for class and color discrimination extends to the parallel narrative of Sophie, who breaks up with a Jamaican lover in France because of his darker skin and patois, an act that throws Pumkin's trajectory into stark relief. This perceptive coming-of-age novel marks Robinson as a writer to watch.
