Nalo Hopkinson’s fifth novel for adults delves into the areas of speculative fiction and the Caribbean oral tradition her writing is best known for. The story opens in Toronto, a setting that at first glance appears entirely grounded in reality. We find Makeda, the story’s protagonist, running away from the confines of her sister Abby’s control to start a life anew in an industrial loft building dubbed Cheerful Rest. She tries her best to act normal – “clay-picken,” as she would say – but it doesn’t take long for her not-so-distant past to reassert itself.

Makeda and Abby were born as conjoined twins to a human mother and celestial father. They were separated at birth, but when one of them started to die, their father and Uncle Jack – an incarnation of the Grim Reaper – were forced to intervene. As a result, the otherworldly matriarch, Ma Ocean, punished Makeda’s demigod father by exiling him to life in human form.

Sibling rivalry courses through the story. Makeda’s first failing is that she was born ordinary, while her sister was blessed with a supernatural singing ability. The sisters’ unusually close relationship also causes tension, eventually precipitating Makeda’s flight to Cheerful Rest. But when their father vanishes, they are forced to set aside their differences to find him.

Hopkinson’s story is a mishmash of influences, yet Sister Mine suffers mainly because its whirlwind plot is at odds with its lethargic pacing. The novel’s overly descriptive narrative gets tedious at times, especially when the sheer amount of detail leaves little to the reader’s imagination. Nearly five pages are devoted to the clumsy knitting of a “monster afghan,” for instance, something later revealed to be the first manifestation of magic from within Makeda. Hopkinson’s descriptive tendencies are not always without merit, however: when Makeda plunges into the celestial world, the imagery allows the reader to undergo the same vertiginous experience she does.