REAPER OF SOULS: A NOVEL OF THE 1957 KENDAL CRASH (USD$15.95)

FROM THE BEST-SELLING AUTHOR of finding mr. Write

“Gripping… A family saga with the power of a speeding train!”

 — Colin Channer, author of Waiting In Vain, Passing Through,

and The Girl With the Golden Shoes

“Beverley East honors the lives of all those impacted by the

devastating tragedy of the Kendal train crash of 1957 in Jamaica. She uncovers secrets that surprise her and will surely surprise her readers. A brave and important work.”    

—Elizabeth Nunez, award-winning author of Bruised Hibiscus and Prospero's Daughter

“Like many other history-making events in the life of Jamaicans, the story of the Kendal Crash was only whispered like some mysterious duppy (ghost) story until Bev East courageously used her family's tragic experience as grist for this touching

and riveting story…”

—Barbara Ellington, The Daily Gleaner

On a late summer evening in 1957, a Jamaican excursion train left Montego Bay for Kingston and met disaster halfway there. Dangerously overcrowded, the coaches had rushed towards Jamaica’s central plains on the return trip to the capital. Just before midnight, in wet conditions, the train derailed near Kendal, Manchester, creating a horrific tangle of wood, glass, steel and torn bodies. At the time, it was history’s worst-ever train wreck.

When the authorities finished counting, more than 250 lives had been lost, 14 of them—nearly 6 percent of those who perished in the Kendal Crash—members of Beverley East’s family. Her compelling novel draws upon both factual and fictionalized accounts of the impact of these events on those who survived. She creates characters that grab the reader’s heartstrings and don’t let go as they struggle to find purpose and joy after suffering the depths of despair.