#BookReview: Gathering of Waters - Bernice McFadden

I worried that there would be no one to take J. California Cooper's place. I thought Bernice McFadden might be the one when I read Glorious. After reading Gathering of Waters, I'm sure of it!

I've often said that reading a J. California Cooper book is like sitting on the porch listening to your grandmother tell you a story.  Using lush words and phrases that make you long for those days, McFadden's latest will leave you breathless from start to end.  Once you start Gathering of Waters, you won't want to put it down until you've finished it.

Warning: When I read and write about really good books, the words I'm looking for don't always come out right.  So even if you can't feel it while reading this review, know that I was gushing over the greatness of this book while writing it.

Through narration by the town of Money, Mississippi, the reader is taken on a journey that explains the evil spirit that inflicted Roy Bryant, one of the men responsible for the murder of Emmett Till.  Surely one would have to be evil to harm an innocent child the way the Bryant and his accomplices did, right?

We're first introduced to the spirit, which belonged to the town's recently deceased whore, early on when it comes back in the form of a little girl.  When that child's mother can no longer control the monster that her daughter has become, she sends her to live with a preacher's family where her destructive ways reach far and wide.  Eventually the spirit finds its way to another innocent child, this one a white boy brought back from the dead, who would eventually become the Roy Bryant who murdered Emmett Till.

Weaving history with fiction with surrealism left me absolutely fascinated with the way the author tied the stories of each person affected by this evil spirit together and then went a step further and tied it into water.  Water is used often in literature to symbolize life, transformation, chaos or a cleansing.  In Gathering of Waters, water is present at each milestone: Doll's transition, Roy's re-birth, Emmett's transition, Emmett's rebirth (of sorts), and Tass' transition. The culmination of the last two events brings forth one of the most chaotic events of present time.  Water...who would have thought it could wreak such havoc.

250pp
Published: January (ebook)/February (paperback) 2012

 

Theme: Come to the River by Dianne Reeves

#BookReview: Sinners & Saints - Victoria Christopher Murray and ReShonda Tate Billingsley

Jasmine Larson Bush and Rachel Jackson Adams play to win.  So when their husbands are both nominated for the presidency of the American Baptist Coalition, they'll stop at nothing to see them win.  And though they're supposed to be women of God, there's nothing godly about their scheming and plotting.  Sinners and Saints could have been aptly named "Christians Behaving Badly." 

While the two ladies battle it out at convention, their husbands are oblivious to what's going on until it becomes all too obvious.  That leads each man to question how badly he wants the position.  If it's meant to be, it'll be, right?  Not if Jasmine and Rachel have anything to do with it.  And what happens if there's someone that wants the position more badly than Rachel or Jasmine? Having personally served on a regional level of a national organization and on the national nominating committee for that same organization, I can honestly say that Murray and Billingsley are definitely on point when it comes to the things people will do to make sure they, or the person they're supporting, wins. A convention has never been so exciting!

It's rare that two people can co-author a book so seamlessly, especially when they're bringing characters that they've each created independently together in one storyline.  With alternating chapters, each author takes a turn presenting Jasmine's and Rachel's side of the story.  I can honestly say I was team Jasmine, but only because I've read about the character previously in Sins of the Mother.  Rachel gives almost as good as Jasmine, but not quite.  I'd say that's only because Jasmine is older and has more years of experience at being conniving and cunning.  I'm sure Rachel will be around giving others hell for years to come.

288pp
Published: January 2012
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher.  Opinions are my own.

Theme: Long As I Got King Jesus by Vickie Winans