This One Sky Day by Leone Ross

From Goodreads

Dawn breaks across the archipelago of Popisho, a world where magic is everywhere, food is fate, politics are broken, and love awaits. Everyone in Popisho was born with a little something… The local name for it was cors. Magic, but more than magic. A gift, nah? Yes. From the gods: a thing that felt so inexpressibly your own.

Somewhere far away-- or maybe right nearby-- lies an archipelago called Popisho. A place of stunning beauty and incorrigible mischief, destiny and mystery, it is also a place in need of change.

Xavier Redchoose is the macaenus of his generation, anointed by the gods to make each resident one perfect meal when the time is right.  Anise, his long lost love, is on a march toward reckoning with her healing powers. The governor’s daughter, Sonteine, is getting married, her father demanding a feast out of turn. And graffiti messages from an unknown source are asking hard questions. A storm is brewing. Before it comes, before the end of the day, this wildly imaginative narrative will take us across the islands, their history, and into the lives of unforgettable characters.

My thoughts

I grabbed a copy of this from my local Library.   I saw the book on a longlist for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022.  Until I saw the longlist I can't say that it was a book that I had come across before and to be honest I am not sure that it is one that I would have picked out if I had.  However, I am game to try anything within reason.

To be honest there's not a right lot that happens in this book and it is quite a slow burner in my opinion, saying that though I read it with an open mind. Do I know what happened enough to write this review I am not sure that I do.  

The story follows the characters during one day and is full of magical escapism that will take us out of our real lives and immerse us into the lives of the characters contained within the covers of this book.  I did find that quite a lot of the story centred around female genitalia and what was happening to it, in an odd way indeed.  You certainly need to be able to suspend all elements of belief when reading the story.

Will I get back the time that I spent reading the story?  I won't, but it immersed me among the pages enough for me to read it all and wonder what was going on.  Others have given up on the story in the past, but I was too invested in it that I had to keep reading until the last sentence.