The New Moon's Arms

electronic resource

English language

Published Nov. 10, 2007 by Grand Central Publishing.

ISBN:: 978-0-7595-1755-4

(1 review)

THE NEW MOON?S ARMS is a mainstream magical realism novel set in the Caribbean on the fictional island of Dolorosse. Calamity, born Chastity, has renamed herself in a way she feels is most fitting. She?s a 50-something grandmother whose mother disappeared when she was a teenager and whose father has just passed away as she begins menopause. With this physical change of life comes a return of a special power for finding lost things, something she hasn?t been able to do since childhood. A little tingling in the hands then a massive hotflash, and suddenly objects, even whole buildings, lost to her since childhood begin showing up around Calamity. One of the lost things Calamity recovers is a small boy who washes up on the shore outside her house after a rainstorm. She takes this bruised but cheerful 3-year-old under her wing and grows attached to him, a process that …

THE NEW MOON?S ARMS is a mainstream magical realism novel set in the Caribbean on the fictional island of Dolorosse. Calamity, born Chastity, has renamed herself in a way she feels is most fitting. She?s a 50-something grandmother whose mother disappeared when she was a teenager and whose father has just passed away as she begins menopause. With this physical change of life comes a return of a special power for finding lost things, something she hasn?t been able to do since childhood. A little tingling in the hands then a massive hotflash, and suddenly objects, even whole buildings, lost to her since childhood begin showing up around Calamity. One of the lost things Calamity recovers is a small boy who washes up on the shore outside her house after a rainstorm. She takes this bruised but cheerful 3-year-old under her wing and grows attached to him, a process that awakens all the old memories, frustrations and mysteries around her own mother and father. She?ll learn that this young boy?s family is the most unusual group she?s ever encountered?and they want their son back.

3 editions

Michael Gouker reviewed The new moon's arms by Nalo Hopkinson

Review of "The new moon's arms" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Brilliant fantasy story of what happens when modern society comes face-to-face with mermen. It is also a story of drowned slaves, brilliantly interwoven, a theme that recurs in The Deep of Solomon Rivers.

Hopkinson has a brilliant voice, and each of her characters is memorable. Some of them, including the MC, have major issues, but that doesn't diminish from the power of the story at all. Her bigotry is actually well handled. There are consequences.