Motherland and Other Stories, the debut book of short fiction by US-based Jamaican Wandeka Gayle (Peepal Tree Press), gives us a series of young Black women who “win our hearts as risk-taking, adventurous explorers of the white world, away from home, which at some point has been Jamaica.” With settings ranging from Britain to the US and back to Jamaica, these moving stories delve into matters of family, love, and the drive to make a life for oneself in a bigger world, despite risks and setbacks.