Chosen the best of almost 1,000 entries to the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest. Jamaica native Hopkinson weaves a compelling story of Afro-Caribbean magic, ancient spirits who rule human lives, and a young woman forced to fend for herself in a 21st-century Toronto that has fallen into economic collapse.

Nalo Hopkinson was born in Jamaica and has lived in Guyana, Trinidad, and Canada. The daughter of a poet/playwright and a library technician, she has won numerous awards including the John W. Campbell Award, the World Fantasy Award, and Canada's Sunburst Award for literature of the fantastic. Her award-winning short fiction collection Skin Folk was selected for the 2002 New York Times Summer Reading List and was one of the New York Times Best Books of the Year.

Hopkinson is also the author of The New Moon's Arms, The Salt Roads, Midnight Robber, and Brown Girl in the Ring. She is a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, and splits her time between California, USA, and Toronto, Canada.