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Next book up in the challenge is Brown Girl in the Ring, by Nalo Hopkinson.

I'd had this sitting on my shelf since it came out, but kept giving up on it due to some clunky exposition in the opening chapter or two. I'm glad I pushed past the clunky bits, because once the world is established and suspension of disbelief has been attained, it's a stunningly good read. The story focuses on Ti-Jeanne, a young woman and new mother in a burnt-out Toronto who's forced to take both human evil and supernatural forces when the father of her baby throws in his lot with a crime lord attempting to attain a human heart for a transplant. Ti-Jeanne and most of the main characters are all of African-Carribean descent, which is a really refreshing change from most extremely white SF and fantasy worlds. The characters are all believable and well-drawn, and the story mixes science fictional/post-apocalyptic elements with African-Carribean religious traditions in a compelling way. The story itself is a real nail-biter, and the climactic confrontation between Ti-Jeanne and the crime lord Rudy was tense enough to make me miss my subway stop. It was also a bit of a kick to see my city, or a post-collapse doppelganger of it, anyway, show up in a novel. I'm now very much looking forward to reading more of Hopkinson's writing.