How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House is a 2021 novel by Barbadian attorney and writer Cherie Jones, her debut novel.

Loosely based on the author’s experiences, the novel deals with generational trauma,[1] abusive relationships, marriage, and life in Barbados.

Wilma tells her orphaned granddaughter, Lala, the story of how the wayward sister lost her arm due to her disobedience.

They live together in a beachfront shack atop concrete steps with no banister that the very pregnant Lala must carefully go up and down each day to the beach to braid the hair of tourists.

Lala’s life comes into contact with a white man, Peter Whalen, when one night he is killed by an armed robber.

This is told from the perspective of Mira Whalen, Peter’s young second wife, and native islander.

Lala begins to raise the unnamed child they call Baby on her own as Adan stops by every once in a while when he risks coming out of hiding.

After buying a box of raisins early in the morning, Mira Whalen stumbles upon a group of people on the beach searching for a stolen baby.

In a review for The Washington Post, Hamilton Cain called the novel "a stunner", writing that Jones’s prose is “supple, often luxuriant, but the structure of her novel is even more impressive as she bobs and weaves through the aftermath of two mysterious crimes.

"[2] Kirkus Reviews described the book as "compelling and terribly sad",[3] which was echoed by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett from The Guardian.

[5] In 2021, How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction[6][7] and was selected as a Good Morning America Book Club pick.