What does it really mean to be Trinbagonian? More than that, how important is it to see ourselves; our nuances, the unique quirks that define who we are as a people, mirrored back to us in our literature?

In penning her debut romance novel Sweethand and its follow up, Don’t Go Baking my Heart, author N.G. Peltier was clear; for her, it meant being intentional about crafting bodies of work which authentically represented her home island and the beauty of its rich, colorful people.

In Sweethand, Peltier gives readers a front row seat to the complicated relationship between pastry chef Cherisse, aka Sugar Queen, and music producer Keiran King. Cherisse has sworn off love after a bitter heartbreak, however a series of events- including a wedding- cause the pair to overcome their petty differences to consider the possibility of forming a union of their own.

The book is colored with heavy Trini dialect- but the characters also interchange between their nuanced language and Standard English.

It’s a decision Peltier explains was deliberate.

“Everything I do in the book was intentional, right? I want them to speak like this for a reason.  I mean, we code switch all the time, and I have the characters do that in the book… I mean, we don’t always speak in dialect- and again, that is our choice,” she says.

The issue of feeling pigeon-holed into tweaking their authentic tongue to make their novel palatable to a wider cross section of readers- and more marketable for publishers- is one challenge many Caribbean authors have had to grapple with.

Peltier tells of how she has managed to navigate that hurdle, coming out on the other side, undiluted.

“In the earlies, I will admit, when I was writing Sweethand there was that inner struggle as to whether, okay, is the book too Caribbean? Is it not Caribbean enough? If I have my characters speaking in dialect, are my readers going to understand what they’re saying? But then I was like, you know what? I am not writing this specifically for people outside the Caribbean,” she shares with YCG of her early thought process.

“And then you can say okay, I’m going to put like a glossary of what these things (dialects) mean. And it’s like no- I’m not doing that, Google exists,” she laughs. “I feel as Caribbean authors we don’t need to spoon feed our readers, readers are pretty smart people, they could Google stuff if they need to. Why is it so different to look up something that may be like little Trini dialect as opposed to,” Peltier further reasons.

While there are many moving parts that take a novel from manuscript to successful publication, Peltier advises fellow authors, particularly first timers, that they must be resolute in their sense of self, not undermining the value of their input in the publication ecosystem.

“I would definitely say- know what your story is and what you’re willing to compromise on and what you’re not willing to compromise on,” Peltier says.

“You as the author have to be very clear on what your story is about and how you want it to be. Of course, I’m not saying don’t take any feedback at all because sometimes editors will see something that need a little fixing. But in terms of the cultural aspect of it, I am not going to let somebody who is part of the culture tell me aye, this is not correct. This is how I want my characters to speak because this is how we speak in Trinidad,” she asserts.

For the Sweethand author, the romance genre has her heart, if just for the temporary escape its lighthearted nature provides. She’s already penning a third book to continue the series.

“That’s the thing about me, I can’t write stand-alone books,” she laughs. “Everything is planned as a series because I always want to know okay, after this particular character gets their happy-ever-after, what about these people who you introduced? As a reader, I love secondary characters,” she adds.

As Peltier continues her journey, she is happy for the growing demand for Caribbean books, and the new and emerging spaces given for authors to thrive.

Of one such initiative, #ReadCaribbean, which was started by Cindy Allman, a Jamaican bookstagrammer living in Trinidad, Peltier says she has been thrilled to see more people reaching for books by Caribbean authors.

“There are a lot of people who, when they think of books coming out of the Caribbean they think of only a certain kind of book. They may think well, it’s only literary fiction, so I’m hoping with this Read Caribbean push people could see that Caribbean authors are writing in every genre that you could think about,” she ends.