Writer, lyricist, and poet Shelley Halima was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and raised in Detroit, Michigan, where she currently resides. She is the author of "Azucar Moreno" and "Los Morenos." Visit her website at www.shelleyhalima.com.

I lit my fire, I greased my skillet with virgin pressed olive oil, and I cooked. Thats one of the statements Chester L. Simmons, Jr. made about his career as a Novillero/Matador in the art of bullfighting. Its really weird that it should be called bullfighting. No reasonable person would ever think of fighting a bull who has been bred to fight. Would any reasonable person think of fighting a pit bull who was bred to fight? But I have to ask, are bullfighters reasonable people?

AZUCAR! The Story of Sugar is a fictional novel that offers a gripping testimony to the unmasked brutality and decay of daily life on a contemporary Caribbean sugarcane plantation, Esperanza Dulce. Azucar, the intelligent and beautiful young girl, is the central character, but the omnipresent protagonist is her namesake, "azucar" -- sugar itself. Azucar?s story is a complex and hauntingly atmospheric tale of sustained intrigue, murder, revenge, forbidden love, and an unnerving journey into the mystical spirit world of Caribbean ritual. Even after Azucar?s fiercely determined grandmother arranges for her to emigrate to Canada -- with a most unlikely couple-- where she is dramatically transformed, she is still not completely free from the hypnotic pull of the distant Caribbean plantation. Azucar meets and falls in love with Lucien, whose own mysterious history shockingly brings them both back to Esperanza Dulce to confront the terrifying ghosts of an unknowingly shared past.