Fearful Breakers

Home. It’s all José has ever cared about.

It’s the middle of the 18th century, and José Albañez is a mixed-race boy living amidst his extensive family and friends in Havana, the capital of the Spanish colony of Cuba. As a boy in school, all he wants is to work side-by-side with his father in their joiner’s shop.

Somehow his Tío Domingo arranges for him to accompany him on his dangerous smuggling ventures among the islands.  Along the way he is exposed to a wider and more challenging world, from the Jewish merchant community of Jamaica to the flagrant contraband trade of Santo Domingo and San Domingue. And in 1762, the British make plans to take Cuba and so put his beloved home at risk.

Follow José’s adventures in this immersive novel of historical fiction and explore Cuba,  where people of color formed a thriving middle-class, Jamaica where Jews were part of the fabric of the island’s society, San Domingue where mounted black policemen flashed their sabers.

Chosen for the 2024 Goethe Book Awards Long List for Late Historical Fiction

”Filled with intriguing Cuban history and helmed by an engaging hero…” – Kirkus Reviews

”A compelling glimpse into Cuba’s past with a strong, easy to root for, protagonist.”— The Wishing Shelf Book Awards

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Questions for use with a bookclub

Treacherous Shoal

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Home. José Albañez is desperate to return there. Captured by the British at the Siege of Havana in 1762, he is sold as a slave, and at last finds himself in the colony of South Carolina, in Charles Town. Charles Town, a place of fragrant gardens and fetid mudflats, of powdered gentlemen and resentful Africans, of wealth and desperation, of piety and dissipation. There he is tormented by loneliness and wracked with worry about his family back in Cuba. José is determined to return home and find his family. What is he willing to do to escape?

Treacherous Shoal is immersive historical fiction that draws the reader into the lives and hearts of the people of Charles Town in 1762.

Available on 2 November

Ocean Wild

José Albañez, now calling himself Osian McIntyre, makes a perilous journey across the Atlantic to Glasgow. He seeks refuge in the Scottish Highlands and uncovers family secrets.