What begins as a romantic tryst in a tropical setting quickly becomes, in this novel first published in 1938, an imaginative exploration of two opposing cultural and economic frameworks in the Caribbean--the dichotomy between the peasant plot, where cultivation and nature mingle, and the estate where land is simply an industrial resource. When Teresa Craddock rebuilds her life on an island resembling Dominica, she rediscovers lost passion by becoming involved with the new owner of an abandoned estate, Derek Morrel. Torn between her desires and the conflict of values with Morrel, the feisty, witty Teresa eventually comes to realize that Morrel's attitudes towards her body and the land are the same.

Elma Napier's love affair with Dominica, then a British colony, began in 1932 when she turned her back on London's high society to build a home in a remote coastal village on that most mysterious and seductive of all Caribbean islands. Black and White Sands is the memoir of her life there - of bohemian house-parties, war and death, smugglers and servants and, above all, of stories inspired by her political life as the only woman in a colonial parliament, her love for the island's turbulent landscapes and her curiosity about the lives and culture of its people.