Jene­va Sa­vanoy knows more than her fair share of se­crets. The beau­ti­ful, well-ed­u­cat­ed princess of the Sa­vanoy clan, she un­der­stands the val­ue of ap­pear­ances, and the weight of pres­tige.

Her fam­i­ly rules the roost of Car­ni­val mas­quer­ade com­pe­ti­tions, with her stern fa­ther Carl­ton head­ing up the King of the Band, one of the rare oc­ca­sions he's out of his chief of po­lice uni­form.

Jene­va's moth­er, Glo­ria, has been the long­time mas queen, fu­elling her most re­cent per­for­mances with one too many gulps from a rum-filled glass. Their par­ents' mar­riage a hol­low farce,

Jene­va takes so­lace in the com­pa­ny of her el­der broth­er Re­my, a tal­ent­ed mas­man who cre­ates daz­zling cos­tumes, com­plete with dis­guis­es al­most as elab­o­rate as the one he keeps over his own per­son­al demons.

How, in the midst of all this, will Jene­va con­front the changes that are poised to sweep over both her mind and body? Can she dance the in­tri­cate foot­steps of the Queen of Car­ni­val, and will she be al­lowed to fol­low the in­sis­tent call of her truest de­sires?

Cer­tain­ly, the pages of this Trinida­di­an-born au­thor Nathalie Taghaboni's first nov­el are deeply lined with con­cerns of the heart. How­ev­er, it would be short-sight­ed to la­bel this fast-paced, fre­quent­ly steamy read as a sim­ple ro­mance. In­deed, as the writer fre­quent­ly shows through the ad­ven­tures and tri­als of her char­ac­ters, so lit­tle in life can be thought of as sim­ple, maybe more so when one is a pas­sion­ate Tri­ni cit­i­zen. Thank­ful­ly, Taghaboni is not shy about her im­pres­sions of sweet T&T, de­scrib­ing it fit­ting­ly as "home to a roil­ing mass of con­tra­dic­tions... its peo­ple he­do­nis­tic and re­li­gious, su­per­sti­tious and bold, ir­rev­er­ent and strict, lust­ful and pi­ous."

It is in the pitch-per­fect de­pic­tion of peo­ple that the writer's tal­ents shine through. Jene­va and her dash­ing suit­or Vi­jay re­sem­ble count­less star-crossed lovers forced to nav­i­gate be­tween oblig­a­tion and the des­per­ate need to be to­geth­er. In their strug­gles with the de­mands of their par­ents, and the ways in which Tri­ni so­ci­ety stereo­types their roles, we wit­ness la­bels that are forced on so many re­al-life cou­ples. Nor is it mere­ly with the pro­tag­o­nists that this sense of fa­mil­iar­i­ty flows-the au­thor has shaped a Trinidad and To­ba­go so be­liev­able that we recog­nise traits and truths in even the most side­line fig­ures.

Tri­nis who en­joy the heat at home, as well as those shiv­er­ing away in less trop­i­cal cli­mates, may well come to think of Across From Lapey­rouse as a re­li­able com­pass that points to the pulse of this na­tion. Those re­turn­ing, for in­stance, from an ex­tend­ed stay "in for­eign" will nod their heads to the fa­mil­iar im­ages con­jured by this de­scrip­tion of how it feels to touch down on lo­cal soil.

"Her en­tire body recog­nised and re­spond­ed to the rhythm of the is­land. Far deep­er and much more spir­i­tu­al than even the pulse of the steel­pan or the throb of a ca­lyp­so, is the rhythm of the coun­try it­self."

Car­ni­val, in all her splen­dour and mul­ti­coloured ex­cite­ment, is giv­en an im­pres­sive stage up­on which to wine and strut in the nov­el. We're shown glimpses of what mas is like for ex­pa­tri­ate Tri­nis abroad, which is de­scribed as no shab­by un­der­tak­ing. How­ev­er, the re­al mag­ic lies in the pow­er of a home-brewed Trin­ba­go Car­ni­val. It is to her cred­it that Taghaboni pop­u­lates her sto­ry with peo­ple who know and un­der­stand the lifeblood of this great­est show on earth. As one of the main char­ac­ters re­flects be­fore she takes to the Sa­van­nah stage for Di­manche Gras, mas is about so much more than the cos­tumes we make and wear. In­hab­it­ing and rev­el­ling in these works of art, we cel­e­brate our hid­den and of­ten-de­nied po­ten­tial: as Tri­nis, as cre­ators of beau­ty and as in­de­pen­dent peo­ple.

Nov­els like Across From Lapey­rouse ought to come with an ad­vi­so­ry warn­ing: they are so much more than they seem. Chart­ing one woman's growth with fiery in­ten­si­ty, and pep­pery dos­es of pure bac­cha­nal, books of this na­ture force us to con­sid­er the ro­man­tic nov­el as a bold new en­ti­ty. They bare their teeth, con­firm­ing in no un­cer­tain terms that women can tri­umphant­ly tell their own sto­ries and steer their own fates in pur­suit of love, laugh­ter and the mean­ing of life.