A mesmerising, magical novel springing from the great tradition of storytelling in the American South.
On a hot, sticky day in a cheap motel, out on the Florida coast, Inez Temple reads Rose Looney's future - sees it in the sugar pattern tracing the bottom of Rose's glass. She sees a sugar cage: "bars glittering like white sand in the sun - a sign that would tell me she was going to let love eat her up."
Over the next twenty years Inez watches helplessly as her prediction comes true, not only for Rose but for Eudora Jewel, Rose's best friend and best enemy. Married on the same day, Rose and Eudora are marked, and nearly destroyed, by their consuming love for their husbands.
Will the cage also trap their children, or will they find a way to dissolve the sugary curse?
