Jade Is a Twisted Green - by Tanya Turton (Paperback)

About the Book

Jade Is a Twisted Green follows the coming of age of Jade Brown, a young Black queer woman on the cusp of turning twenty-five. Her becoming story explores Jamaican Canadian identity, love, passion, chosen family, and rediscovering life's pleasures after loss.

Book Synopsis

For readers of Queenie and Honey Girl, a coming-of-age story about queer Black identity, love, passion, chosen family, and rediscovering life's pleasures after loss.

Jade Brown, a twenty-four-year-old first-generation Jamaican woman living in Toronto, must find a way to pick up the pieces and discover who she is following the mysterious death of her twin sister.

Grappling with her grief, Jade seeks solace in lovers and friends during an array of hilarious and heartbreaking adventures. As she investigates some of life's most frustrating paradoxes, she holds tight to old friends and her ex-girlfriend, lifelines between past and present. On the journey to turning twenty-five, she finally sees that she belongs to herself, and goes about the business of reclaiming that self.

Through a series of whirlwind love affairs, parties, and trips abroad, Jade stumbles toward relinquishing the weight of her trauma as she fully comes into her own as a young Black woman and writer.

A RARE MACHINES BOOK

Review Quotes

A liberating story about community and grief and discovering what freedom is to you, which challenges the ways Western society looks at self-care, recovery, and relationships today...poignant and meaningful.-- "The Ampersand Review"

Jade Is a Twisted Green is full of everything I love most: note-perfect dialogue, unforgettable voice and some of the most beautifully observed, sensory descriptions of Toronto since Dionne Brand's What We All Long For or Catherine Hernandez's Scarborough. Jade Is a Twisted Green is a gorgeous, insightful look into queer relationships and identity, cultural expectations, and complex family relationships. Tanya Turton is a powerful, incredible talent.

-- "Danila Botha, author of For All The Men (and Some of the Women) I've Known"

Tender and heartfelt, Jade Is a Twisted Green is a meditation on finding yourself and love after unimaginable grief. Told from the rich, unique vibrance of Toronto's Caribbean diaspora, Tanya Turton gifts us with a tale that is bold, meaningful and moving. A sparkling debut novel.

-- "Junauda Petrus-Nasah, author of The Stars and the Blackness Between Them"

A deliciously queer narrative, Turton's storytelling perfectly captures the kinetic energy of Toronto while delivering a coming-of-age journey that hits you in the gut.-- "Natasha Negovanlis, actress"

About the Author

Tanya Turton is a storyteller, educator, and mental health advocate. She fell in love with storytelling when she began to feel displaced in her own world and found creative writing. Jade Is a Twisted Green is her debut novel. Hailing from Jamaica, Tanya was raised and lives in Toronto.