"When Helen, a Jamaican teenager, loses her parents to malaria in 1880, she finds work on a plantation, where she is raped by the owner and gives birth to a daughter. Thus begins the story of four generations of women in Jamaica and Boston, including during the Roaring Twenties, with that decade's rise and fall of hemlines and the stock market. The book has four sections, each telling the story of a woman: Helen, Eva, Gwen and Eleanor: Eleanor's great-grandmother and grandmother, her mother and herself. Eleanor Passailaigue was born in Jamaica and moved to Toronto, Canada, in 1953. Her early childhood is depicted as part of this book. Donnie Passailaigue, the boy she fell in love with as a teenager, is still at her side. In 1966, Eleanor and Donnie went back to Jamaica with their two daughters, returning to Toronto several years later. They currently live in Markham, north of Toronto. This is Eleanor's first book"--Provided by publisher.

Part one: Helen -- Part two: Eva -- Family album -- Part three: Gwen -- Part four: Eleanor.