Debut novel for the single-monikered Varaidzo whose writing has appeared in anthologies and who has a background as a Digital and Arts & Culture Editor.  This is a dual narrative novel set in Bath and London at the time of the 2012 Olympics and in the mid 1930s.

Itai arrives in Bath to a flat he inherited from his father.  He did not know that his Dad had a place in Bath and further secrets are revealed when he discovers a box of cassette tapes.  The voice on the tapes is Rita, who has her tale to tell, in a transcribed narrative about Black British experience in the 1930s.  What links this woman from the past to this twenty-something Rastafarian and how is Itai’s experience in a place which feels very alien to him as a Londoner mirrored by Rita’s seventy plus years before?

Itai’s position in this new location is initially precarious as he is viewed with hostility by drug dealers in case he, a young black man from London, takes over their patch. This led me to expect something edgier than the novel turned out to be.  It settles into a tale of family, friendship and searching to belong, it feels very commercial and there’s a good sense of history of those still under-represented.  I never knew Hailie Selassie was exiled in Bath following conflict with Italy in Ethiopia and it is his presence which draws some of the characters to the city in the 1930s strand.

Characterisation is memorable in both narratives.  I developed a strong soft spot for young Josh who lives in the same flats as Itai, a future Olympic hopeful whose lack of funding leads him to selling weed to his neighbour.  The 1930s strand is rich in music and dance with Rita as part of the Hot Chocolates dance troupe and Ezekiel, a trumpeter, who is the source of Itai’s deceased father’s research as an ethnomusicologist. There’s a really useful bibliography at the end of titles the author used for research.  I’ve already highlighted a few to follow up on which shows that her fiction has certainly captivated my attention.

The title lest you think it’s a reference to a male nanny caring for an infant reflects the nicknames of Rita (The Baby) and her half-sister Emmanuella.

This is another strong debut in a year of strong debuts.  I hope this one will get the attention it deserves.

Manny And The Baby is published on 11^th April by Sphere Books in the UK.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.