Breanne MC Ivor – författare

Combining the honesty, warmth, and humor of Queenie and a modern-day Bridget Joness Diary, this entertaining, transportive, and luminous debut novel from award-winning writer Breanne Mc Ivor follows a young Trinidadian woman finding her voice and a new kind of happy ending."e;Phenomenal! A book worthy of a standing ovation. I will never forget how this novel mademe feel. It's effortlessly beautiful."e;Lizzie Damilola Blackburn, author of Yinka, Where is your Huzband?Bianca Bridge has always dreamt of becoming a writer. But Trinidadian society can be unforgiving, and having an affair with a married government official is a sure-fire way to ruin your prospects. So when Obadiah Cortland, a notoriously tyrannical entrepreneur in the islands beauty scene, offers her a job, Bianca accepts, realizing that working on his magazine is the closest to her dreams shell get.As Bianca begins to embrace her power and creative voice, she starts to suspect Obadiah is not the elite tyrant he seems. Shes right. Born in one of the poorest parts of Trinidad, Obadiah has clawed partway up societys ladder and built his company around his meticulously crafted persona. Now, hes not about to let anyone, especially Bianca, see past his faade.When Biancas ex-lover threatens everything shes rebuilt, jeopardizing all shes come to love about her new life, shes surprised to find support from the most unlikely ally and, finally, draws the strength to fight back like her mother taught her.Sharp-witted and fiercely fun, The God of Good Looks alternates between Biancas diary entries and Obadiahs first-person narrative to portray modern Trinidads rigid class barriers and the fraught impact of beauty commodification in a patriarchal society. Boisterous, moving, and full of meaty, universally relatable questions, Mc Ivors sparkling debut is an open-hearted, awakening tale about prejudice and pride, the masks we wear, and what we can become if we dare to take them off.

Sometimes you need to clash to make an impact.Bianca Bridge is like an eyeshadow palette. She's a vibrant kaleidoscope of big personality and even bigger dreams, with a tendency towards messiness and fallout. Case in point: ruining her career prospects and hopes of becoming a writer by having an affair with a married government minister.Fiercely confident and uncompromising, her tyrannical new boss Obadiah Cortland - makeup artist and legend in Trinidad's beauty scene - is like a statement red lipstick. 'The God of Good Looks' is a facade he has perfected over years of slipping through the island's rigid class barriers, and he knows as well as Bianca that the tiniest smudge can ruin your image.When Bianca's ex threatens both their futures, this clashing combination must find a way to work together to save everything they care about. But might they actually bring out the best in each other?Sparkling, big-hearted and life-affirming, The God of Good Looks is a story about prejudice and pride, the masks we wear and who we can become if we dare to take them off.-----'Phenomenal! A book worthy of a standing ovation. I will never forget how this novel made me feel' LIZZIE DAMILOLA BLACKBURN, author of Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?'A dazzling delight ... I didn't want it to end!' COCO MELLORS, author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein'A glittering will-they, won't-they Bridget Jones re-boot' NIKKI MAY, author of Wahala

‘Dazzling … I didn’t want it to end’ Coco Mellors author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein‘Phenomenal! A book worthy of a standing ovation’ Lizzie Damilola Blackburn, author of Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?Getting a second chance is a beautiful thing…Bianca Bridge’s personal and professional lives are in tatters. She has lost her beloved mother and has only a distant relationship with her self-made father. And now, she’s been outed as the mistress of a government minister – ending her journalism career before it had even started.All but unemployable, she is astonished when tyrannical make-up artist Obadiah Cortland, Trinidad’s legendary ‘God of Good Looks’, hires her as his new assistant.At first, Bianca can’t stand her fierce new boss – and he lets her know the feeling is mutual. But when her ex threatens both their futures and working together becomes their last resort, she begins to glimpse another Obadiah beneath the façade he’s so carefully cultivated.‘I loved it’ India Knight‘A glittering will-they, won’t-they Bridget Jones re-boot’ Nikki May, author of Wahala ‘A punchy romance with plenty to say about Caribbean class, poverty and sexism. Bianca Bridge is a heroine to root for’ Observer‘Wickedly funny… Mc Ivor uses the metaphor of make-up to examine privilege, corruption and truth. Bianca is a hugely endearing heroine’ Daily Mail

‘Dazzling … I didn’t want it to end’ Coco Mellors author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein‘Phenomenal! A book worthy of a standing ovation’ Lizzie Damilola Blackburn, author of Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?Getting a second chance is a beautiful thing…Bianca Bridge’s personal and professional lives are in tatters. She has lost her beloved mother and has only a distant relationship with her self-made father. And now, she’s been outed as the mistress of a government minister – ending her journalism career before it had even started.All but unemployable, she is astonished when tyrannical make-up artist Obadiah Cortland, Trinidad’s legendary ‘God of Good Looks’, hires her as his new assistant.At first, Bianca can’t stand her fierce new boss – and he lets her know the feeling is mutual. But when her ex threatens both their futures and working together becomes their last resort, she begins to glimpse another Obadiah beneath the façade he’s so carefully cultivated.‘I loved it’ India Knight‘A glittering will-they, won’t-they Bridget Jones re-boot’ Nikki May, author of Wahala ‘A punchy romance with plenty to say about Caribbean class, poverty and sexism. Bianca Bridge is a heroine to root for’ Observer‘Wickedly funny… Mc Ivor uses the metaphor of make-up to examine privilege, corruption and truth. Bianca is a hugely endearing heroine’ Daily Mail

Breanne Mc Ivor is a bold new voice in Caribbean fiction. The Trinidad of her stories is utterly contemporary but also a place defined by its folk mythologies and its cultural creations, its traditions of masking and disguises. Her stories confront the increasing economic and cultural divisions between rich and poor, the alarming rise in crime, murders and an alternative economy based on drug trafficking. Their daring is that they look both within the human psyche and back in time to make sense of this reality. The figure of the loup-garou, the violent rhetoric of the Midnight Robber – or even cannibalism lurking far off the beaten track – have become almost comic tropes of a dusty folklore. In Mc Ivor''s stories they become real and terrifying daylight presences, monsters who pass among us.Her great gift as a writer is to take us to unexpected places, both to seduce us into a kind of sympathy for her monsters of greater and lesser kinds, and sometimes to reveal a capacity for redemption amongst characters we are tempted to dismiss as shallow, unlikable human beings. The problem, in a world of masks and disguises, is how to tell the difference.In these carefully crafted stories, with room for humour, though of a distinctly gothic kind, Breanne Mc Ivor reaches deep into the roots of Trinidad folk narratives to present us with very modern versions of our troubled selves.