An Olive Grove in Ends

Moses McKenzie

Contemporary Fiction

Sayon Hughes longs to escape the volatile Bris­tol neighborhood known as Ends, the tight-knit but sometimes lawless world in which he was raised, and forge a better life with Shona, the girl he’s loved since grade school. With few paths out, he is drawn into dealing drugs along­side his cousin, the unpredictable but fiercely loyal Cuba. Sayon is on the cusp of making a clean break when an altercation with a rival dealer turns deadly and an expected witness threatens blackmail, upending his plans.

Sayon’s loyalties are torn. If Shona learns the secret of his crime, he will lose her forever. But if he doesn’t escape Ends now, he may never get another chance. Is it possible to break free of the bookies’ tickets, burnt spoons, and crook­ed solutions, and still keep the love of his life?

Rippling with authenticity and power, Mo­ses McKenzie’s dazzling debut brings to life a vi­brant and teeming world we have read too little about. In its sheer lyrical power, An Olive Grove in Ends recalls the work of James Baldwin and marks the arrival of an exciting and formidable new voice.

-Excerpt taken from Goodreads.

Check Goodreads to see the book’s ratings.

My Opinion

(3.5 / 5) Sayon lives in an unforgiving Bristol neighborhood that he longs to escape. His dream is to take his first love, Shona and build a better life. With much in the way of this dream, he gets into drugs and serious crime.

This book had a lot of heart in it. I was immediately drawn into the audio by the accents and Jamaican traits that are found in their language. Oh I love that patois! I believe his family came from Jamaica to England and settled there.

Ultimately, this sounded like a memoir. At the beginning I had to look it up because with the accents and first person, it was very believable. As the story progressed, I lost interest. There were a lot of interesting parts mixed in with scenes that didn’t grab my attention. Basically, I needed to find out what happened and how his life played out because I was invested but getting to the end took much longer than I anticipated. There were deep discussions of Islam vs. Christianity, many thoughts of violence, faith in general and many other topics. It truly became a story about faith, violence and poverty.

The audio really was fabulous! When I mentioned the patois (Jamaican accent and way of speaking, but speaking English), the narrator really took it to a new level. He did all the mannerisms so well, I felt like I was right there watching the story. The mannerisms included the “mm mm’s” and “sucking/kissing teeth” that made the story come alive. I know I would not have been able to do this book justice if I was just reading it in my head.

General content summary: F words: 20+, hard drugs and selling (frequent), infidelity, murder (few details), murder (details), abortion, intimacy alluded to (no details), physical aggression, sexual abuse to a young child alluded to, a young woman is killed by drugs either being laced or giving her too much on purpose, funeral and grief, reference to rape, alcoholism, a group attacks a young man with knives killing him, physical aggression, shooting and death, religion and god.

Thank you to Libro.FM for the gifted copy!

The book is out now!

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