It is an unlikely place to meet the love of your life, but here she encounters Pao, a Chinatown racketeer and a loyal customer who will become something more. From a room in a boarding house and a job at a supply store, Gloria finds her way to a house of ill repute on the edge of the city, intrigued by the glamorous, financially independent women within.

But in a capital city awash with change, a black woman is still treated as a second-class citizen. Taking along her younger sister, she flees their hometown to forge a new life in Kingston. Gloria Campbell is 16 years old when a single violent act alters the course of her life forever. So we were delighted to discover that the story of Gloria, whom we met in Pao, is now continued in this prequel, of sorts. She also earned, we reckon, lifelong fans of her work. Young read an excerpt at Calabash 2012, and was riotously funny in her delivery, earning wild applause and a standing ovation. We absolutely loved Pao, Young's pitch-perfect, beguiling first novel published in 2011 about a Chinese man negotiating love and life in postcolonial Jamaica. Needless to say, with news in last week's edition of Bookends that Jamaican author Kerry Young's newest novel, Gloria, is in the running for the prestigious 2014 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, we around here are ecstatic.

Gloria by Kerry Young