On a mysterious quest to find her missing sister, Mavis finds herself in an enchanted forest full of perils — and an encounter with an old woman who seems to nurse dark secrets. The House of Never, the chapbook debut by Stephanie Koathes, is excerpted from a novel in progress that reimagines traditional Caribbean folklore to create a fantasy world full of supernatural friends and foes.
Chapbook · Fiction
The House Of Never
by Stephanie Koathes
$50.00 TTD
“Whether taken by slavers or by fae, what would you do if your little sister vanished overnight? Impelled by love and duty, the heroine goes out to seek, to learn, and then to fight against corrupt and sinister powers. Stephanie Koathes has created a world and a quest that are both mythic and modern; the setting is fantasy, but the stakes are real and perennial.”
Available from Paper Based Bookshop, Port of Spain.
About the book
The House of Never by Jamaican author Stephanie Koathes presents an excerpt from a novel in progress. Selected as a Bocas Breakthrough Fellow, Koathes began her forthcoming novel during her fellowship term, which included mentoring by Karen Lord, author of The Blue, Beautiful World.
The Bocas Breakthrough Fellowships were awarded in 2024 to five early-career Caribbean writers, to support them in advancing or completing a debut book of fiction or poetry, The fellows were Heather barker of Barbados, Stephanie Koathes and Rhea Manley of Jamaica, and June Aming and Amílcar Peter Sanatan of Trinidad and Tobago.
The Bocas Breakthrough Fellowships are funded by Creative Caribbean, a joint project implemented by UNESCO, the CARICOM Secretariat and The University of the West Indies (UWI), with funding from the European Union and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, under the ACP-EU 11th EDP Culture Programme. Creative Caribbean brings together to achieve shared goals and initiatives for the advancement of the Caribbean as a cultural and creative space and economic player.
Meet the author
Stephanie Koathes
Stephanie Koathes is a fantasy writer born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, where she lives at teh mercy of her cats. She’s been writing since she was old enough to hold a crayon and has dreamed of being an author since high school. Koathes graduated from the University of the West Indies with a degree in English Literature. Since then she’s gone on to teach English in France, and work with words in one form or another, from a newsroom to online content writing, freelance writing, and copywriting. Koathes has always been obsessed with the idea that there are unseen things in the world just out of sight and has been looking for hidden portals, trapdoors, and magic her whole life. Having not found any, she has decided to write some.
This chapbook is an excerpt from her debut novel in progress, which she worked on during her 2024 Bocas Breakthrough Fellowship, mentored by author Karen Lord.
