Friday, November 15, 2019

THE REVISIONERS by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

Synopsis: In 1925, Josephine is the proud owner of a thriving farm. As a child, she channeled otherworldly power to free herself from slavery. Now, her new neighbor, a white woman named Charlotte, seeks her company, and an uneasy friendship grows between them. But Charlotte has also sought solace in the Ku Klux Klan, a relationship that jeopardizes Josephine's family.

Nearly one hundred years later, Josephine's descendant, Ava, is a single mother who has just lost her job. She moves in with her white grandmother Martha, a wealthy but lonely woman who pays her grandchild to be her companion. But Martha's behavior soon becomes erratic, then even threatening, and Ava must escape before her story and Josephine's converge.

The Revisioners explores the depths of women's relationships—powerful women and marginalized women, healers and survivors. It is a novel about the bonds between a mother and a child, the dangers that upend those bonds. At its core, The Revisioners ponders generational legacies, the endurance of hope, and the undying promise of freedom.

Review: You know how you finish a book and rate it right away, but then you wake up the next day after you've had time to sleep on that book and you're like, no, that book wasn't really a 5 star, it's more of a 4 star? That's me with The Revisioners.

I love the way Margaret Wilkerson Sexton travels back and forth between two different eras and two different protagonists. She did it really well in A Kind of Freedom and does it fairly well in The Revisioners, except when I woke up thinking about the story line this morning, it dawned on me that there were a number of loose ends that weren't tied up by the end of the book.

Without giving too much away, I'll say there were characters in the present and in the past who were tied to each other, that much was spelled out. But there were other characters in the present and in the past who I think may have been tied to each other (or really should have been in my opinion), but I don't know if they were or if there was just an underlying message about the kind of people you can and cannot trust.

Another thing that kind of shook me was the abrupt ending because it left a big question unanswered about one of the two protagonists. There were also unanswered questions in regards to some of the present day characters that left me scratching my proverbial head. I didn't sign up for a Choose Your Own Adventure book. Sometimes I want the story spelled out for me instead of being left to guess what happened.

Overall, The Revisioners is still a solid read, which is why I gave it four stars, I just wish the author had taken a little more time to give definitive answers instead of leaving readers to guess.






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Tuesday, October 1, 2019

ROYAL HOLIDAY by Jasmine Guillory

Synopsis: Vivian Forest has been out of the country a grand total of one time, so when she gets the chance to tag along on her daughter Maddie’s work trip to England to style a royal family member, she can’t refuse. She’s excited to spend the holidays taking in the magnificent British sights, but what she doesn’t expect is to become instantly attracted to a certain private secretary, his charming accent, and unyielding formality.

Malcolm Hudson has worked for the Queen for years and has never given a personal, private tour—until now. He is intrigued by Vivian the moment he meets her and finds himself making excuses just to spend time with her. When flirtatious banter turns into a kiss under the mistletoe, things snowball into a full-on fling.

Despite a ticking timer on their holiday romance, they are completely fine with ending their short, steamy affair come New Year’s Day. . .or are they?

Review: I LOVE that this romance centers on seasoned adults. Yay for love over 50!

I'm so excited about Royal Holiday for a number of reasons. I love that Jasmine Guillory took us "across the pond" this time, expanding the location of where black people are found. Also, the fact that Malcolm is a black man working as secretary to the Queen of England? Oh my God! But what stood out most to me were the ages of Malcolm and Vivian. Far too often protagonists in romances are 20 or 30 somethings, so it was refreshing to explore the romance of the 50 and up crowd.

I loved how both of their past experiences (and wisdom) informed their conversations, how they acted with each other and how they conducted their relationship. I honestly can't get enough of Guillory's writing and can't wait to read more from her.

Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory





4 of 5 stars

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Wednesday, June 19, 2019

#BookReview: SEEDS OF DECEPTION by Arlene Walker

Synopsis: A clash between Cherokee Indians and their former African slaves comes to a head in the tribal town of Feather Falls. On the same day Sput Louie McClendon is evicted by reviled town tycoon Goliah Lynch, her husband mysteriously vanishes. Has he fallen prey to bushwhackers or timber thieves? Or is Lynch behind his disappearance? Alone and desperate, Sput Louie turns to town elder for help, but are his intentions pure? As Sput Louie’s frantic search for her husband intensifies, she stumbles onto a dark twisted family secret – one that could not only have devastating implications for her, but the entire town of Feather Falls.

Review: Iyanla Vanzant always talks about people "doing the work." Nothing comes to anyone easily, you must prepare so when an opportunity presents itself, you're ready to seize your moment. Arlene Walker has done her work and has been preparing for this moment. Seeds of Deception is well researched historical fiction about Africans formerly enslaved by Native American tribes and their quest to be recognized as tribal members. Recognition of such would allow them to receive land, stipends, etc. from the U.S. government, especially important in the post-Civil War era. It should be noted that descendants of formerly enslaved Africans are still fighting for tribal recognition.

Walker's characters are well developed and multidimensional. Their story lines are intriguing, and she's really out to teach her readers aspects of history they never knew about or provide a deeper understanding of that which you thought you knew. Her writing style is reminiscent of J. California Cooper, specifically The Wake of the Wind, and Leonard Pitts, Jr. (Freeman). Fans of either author will greatly enjoy Seeds of Deception.

I've followed Arlene on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for quite awhile, so I've been aware that she was working on a book, but I didn't know it would be this book and that it would be so good. Honestly, I'm so envious of everyone who hasn't read her debut novel yet. I wish I could go back and meet her characters all over again. I haven't stopped thinking about their stories yet. Seeds of Deception is easily one of my favorite reads this year.

Seeds of Deception by Arlene L. Walker

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Wednesday, June 12, 2019

#BookReview: NATALIE TAN'S BOOK OF LUCK AND FORTUNE by Roselle Lim

Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and FortuneSynopsis: At the news of her mother's death, Natalie Tan returns home. The two women hadn't spoken since Natalie left in anger seven years ago, when her mother refused to support her chosen career as a chef. Natalie is shocked to discover the vibrant neighborhood of San Francisco's Chinatown that she remembers from her childhood is fading, with businesses failing and families moving out. She's even more surprised to learn she has inherited her grandmother's restaurant.

The neighborhood seer reads the restaurant's fortune in the leaves: Natalie must cook three recipes from her grandmother's cookbook to aid her struggling neighbors before the restaurant will succeed. Unfortunately, Natalie has no desire to help them try to turn things around--she resents the local shopkeepers for leaving her alone to take care of her agoraphobic mother when she was growing up. But with the support of a surprising new friend and a budding romance, Natalie starts to realize that maybe her neighbors really have been there for her all along.

Review: There's a lot going on in Natalie Tan's life: resentment for her mother and a bit of shame about their fractured relationship; proposed gentrification of the neighborhood she couldn't wait to escape but has come to love; and a bit of romance. Initially Natalie wants to sell the building so she can hit the road and continue to drift from place to place as she has since she first left home, but soon comes to realize Chinatown is exactly where she's meant to be.

Roselle Lim deftly weaves all of these elements into one of the most magical reads I've come across this year. I can't wait to see what she does next.

Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune by Roselle Lim

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Friday, March 22, 2019

New Books Coming Your Way, March 26, 2019

Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss by Rajeev Balasubramanyam
368 p.; Fiction

Professor Chandra is an internationally renowned economist; divorced father of three (quite frankly, baffling) children; recent victim of a bicycle hit-and-run—but so much more than the sum of his parts.

In the moments after the accident, Professor Chandra doesn’t see his life flash before his eyes, but his life’s work. He’s just narrowly missed the Nobel Prize (again), and even though he knows he should get straight back to his pie charts, his doctor has other ideas.

All this work. All this success. All this stress. It’s killing him. He needs to take a break, start enjoying himself. In short, says his doctor, Professor Chandra should just follow his bliss. He doesn’t know it yet but he’s about to embark on the trip of a lifetime.

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays by Damon Young
320 p.; Memoir

For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as “How should I react here, as a professional black person?” and “Will this white person’s potato salad kill me?” are forever relevant.

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker chronicles Young’s efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him.

It’s a condition that’s sometimes stretched to absurd limits, provoking the angst that made him question if he was any good at the “being straight” thing, as if his sexual orientation was something he could practice and get better at, like a crossover dribble move or knitting; creating the farce where, as a teen, he wished for a white person to call him a racial slur just so he could fight him and have a great story about it; and generating the surreality of watching gentrification transform his Pittsburgh neighborhood from predominantly Black to “Portlandia … but with Pierogies.”

And, at its most devastating, it provides him reason to believe that his mother would be alive today if she were white.

Murder with Collard Greens and Hot Sauce by A.L. Herbert
288 p.; Mystery

When the chicest hair convention of the year gets cooking in town, so does business at Mahalia’s Sweet Tea. Halia can barely handle the influx of customers looking to satisfy their appetites after spending the day surrounded by outrageous runway styles. As buzz builds around beauty mogul and pop culture icon Monique Dupree, collard greens start moving out of the kitchen faster than models strutting down the catwalk…

But the glitz fades the moment Monique is found shot to death. Turns out, the glamorous entrepreneur’s vanity empire was stained by bitter rivalries, explosive affairs, and backstabbers scheming for fame and fortune. With more suspects than ingredients listed on a bottle of deep conditioner, Halia and her cousin Wavonne rush to discover who pulled the trigger—before the conniving culprit dishes another deadly surprise…

Zora and Langston: A Story of Friendship and Betrayal by Yuval Taylor
304 p.; Literary

They were best friends. They were collaborators, literary gadflies, and champions of the common people. They were the leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance. Zora Neale Hurston, the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Langston Hughes, the author of “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “Let America Be America Again,” first met in 1925, at a great gathering of black and white literati, and they fascinated each other. They traveled together in Hurston’s dilapidated car through the rural South collecting folklore, worked on the play Mule Bone, and wrote scores of loving letters. They even had the same patron: Charlotte Osgood Mason, a wealthy white woman who insisted on being called “Godmother.”

Paying them lavishly while trying to control their work, Mason may have been the spark for their bitter and passionate falling-out. Was the split inevitable when Hughes decided to be financially independent of his patron? Was Hurston jealous of the young woman employed as their typist? Or was the rupture over the authorship of Mule Bone? Yuval Taylor answers these questions while illuminating Hurston’s and Hughes’s lives, work, competitiveness, and ambition, uncovering little-known details.

The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
320 p.; Fiction

Late one spring night, Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant living in California, is walking across a darkened intersection when he is killed by a speeding car. The repercussions of his death bring together a diverse cast of characters: Guerraoui’s daughter Nora, a jazz composer who returns to the small town in the Mojave she thought she’d left for good; his widow, Maryam, who still pines after her life in the old country; Efraín, an undocumented witness whose fear of deportation prevents him from coming forward; Jeremy, an old friend of Nora’s and an Iraq War veteran; Coleman, a detective who is slowly discovering her son’s secrets; Anderson, a neighbor trying to reconnect with his family; and the murdered man himself.

As the characters—deeply divided by race, religion, and class—tell their stories, connections among them emerge, even as Driss’s family confronts its secrets, a town faces its hypocrisies, and love, messy and unpredictable, is born.

Friday, March 15, 2019

New Books Coming Your Way, March 19, 2019

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
336 p.; Fiction/UK

Queenie Jenkins is a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper, where she’s constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle class peers. After a messy break up from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places…including several hazardous men who do a good job of occupying brain space and a bad job of affirming self-worth.

As Queenie careens from one questionable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be?”—all of the questions today’s woman must face in a world trying to answer them for her.

A People's History of Heaven by Mathangi Subramanian
304 p.; Fiction/India

Welcome to Heaven, a thirty-year-old slum hidden between brand-new high-rise apartment buildings and technology incubators in contemporary Bangalore, one of India's fastest-growing cities. In Heaven, you will come to know a community of people living hand-to-mouth and constantly struggling against the city government who wants to bulldoze their homes and build yet more glass high-rises. These families, men and women, young and old, gladly support one another, sharing whatever they can.

A People's History of Heaven centers on five best friends, girls who go to school together, a diverse group who love and accept one another unconditionally, pulling one another through crises and providing emotional, physical, and financial support. Together they wage war on the bulldozers that would bury their homes, and, ultimately, on the city that does not care what happens to them.

Can't Escape Love by Alyssa Cole
128 p.; Romance novella

Regina Hobbs is nerdy by nature, businesswoman by nurture. She's finally taking her pop culture-centered media enterprise, Girls with Glasses, to the next level, but the stress is forcing her to face a familiar supervillain: insomnia. The only thing that helps her sleep when things get this bad is the deep, soothing voice of puzzle-obsessed live streamer Gustave Nguyen. The problem? His archive has been deleted.

Gus has been tasked with creating an escape room themed around a romance anime…except he knows nothing about romance or anime. Then mega-nerd and anime expert Reggie comes calling, and they make a trade: his voice for her knowledge. But when their online friendship has IRL chemistry, will they be able to escape love?

Bombay Brides by Esther David
216 p.; Fiction/India

When Juliet and Romiel get married and relocate to Israel, they rent out their Apartment 107 in Ahmedabad’s Shalom India Housing Society to Jews. Each character who inhabits the house has a story to tell: about run-ins with the other residents, the diminishing community of Jews, cross-cultural conflicts, and the difficulty of choosing between India and Israel. Prophet Elijah, whom the Bene Israel Jews of western India believe in, plays an important role in their lives, appearing at critical or amusing moments and wreaking havoc with his mischief, but ensuring that ultimately peace prevails.

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

#BookReview: MY SISTER, THE SERIAL KILLER by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Synopsis: When Korede's dinner is interrupted one night by a distress call from her sister, Ayoola, she knows what's expected of her: bleach, rubber gloves, nerves of steel and a strong stomach. This'll be the third boyfriend Ayoola's dispatched in "self-defence" and the third mess that her lethal little sibling has left Korede to clear away. She should probably go to the police for the good of the menfolk of Nigeria, but she loves her sister and, as they say, family always comes first. Until, that is, Ayoola starts dating a doctor at the hospital where Korede works as a nurse. Korede's long been in love with him, and isn't prepared to see him wind up with a knife in his back: but to save one would mean sacrificing the other...

Review: I know older sisters are supposed to look out for their younger siblings, but Korede really goes above and beyond. In this quick moving story, Korede goes through a range of emotions related to her care free, devil may care sister. And while she initially willingly helps her sister out of sticky situations, she comes to resent her. But we should explore why Korede feels so obliged to protect Ayoola from herself.

Oldest daughters play a special role in most families, right? They're almost like the second mother in these households. Parents drill this into the oldest daughter, and her siblings typically resent her for this role, but still turn to her when they're in trouble but unwilling to go to their parents. Korede takes this role very seriously, almost to her detriment.

Braithwaite packs a lot into 226 pages. Readers will find themselves sympathizing with Korede sometimes, and questioning her logic at other times. I don't think I found Ayoola likable at any point because I recognize the selfishness and self-centered ways the baby of the family tends to possess. Had Ayoola transformed into a more caring individual, my opinion of her might have changed. As it is, there are no heroes here, only acceptance and conformity.

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

#BookReview: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO FANNIE DAVIS:My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers by Bridgett M. Davis

Synopsis: Offering a daughter's perspective on her larger-than-life mother, Bridgett Davis traces her family's story as part of the Great Migration, showing how her mother and father arrived in Detroit from Tennessee carrying with them not just their own hopes but also those of their families. A child gifted with extraordinary powers of perception and understanding, Davis breaks the code of secrecy around her mother's business and in so doing reveals both her mothers' extraordinary sacrifices as well as her seemingly endless generosity. We come to understand just how keenly Fannie Davis believed in the power of money, and family, to make the world right.

Review: Black mothers are amazing. Don't hit me with "all mothers are amazing" because while they might be good, black mothers are amazing because they're tasked with preparing black children to face a life that won't always be kind to them and won't think they're amazing. Fannie Davis created a blueprint for life that showed her kids, the author in particular, that they were special, there was nothing they couldn't do and no one could place limitations on them.

I grew up with a granny who loved playing the lottery. I have vivid memories of going to the neighborhood liquor store (because no one batted an eye in the 80s when kids bought lottery tickets and cigarettes) to play her numbers, straight and boxed. And though she never told me, I suspect that my granny, a Tennessee transplant living in East St. Louis, IL, played the numbers long before the lottery became an official entity. So I understood how important the numbers were to the black community - a chance to pay a little for a potentially big payout, a little hope for a few dollars, and the excitement when your number hit.

I was immediately drawn into Fannie Davis's story, learning the flip side of how the numbers worked and the ability to turn that knowledge and ingenuity into a life long enterprise that afforded her and her family nice houses in good neighborhoods, education at private college, luxury vacations, and the ability to walk away from a marriage that was no longer working for her, because she could afford to do so. I love the example she set for her children, her daughters especially. I'm so glad Bridgett M. Davis shared the story of her family and her mother with us and I think you will be too.

Friday, February 15, 2019

New Books Coming Your Way, Feb. 19, 2019

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray
224 p.; Fiction/African-American

The Butler family has had their share of trials—as sisters Althea, Viola, and Lillian can attest—but nothing prepared them for the literal trial that will upend their lives.

Althea, the eldest sister and substitute matriarch, is a force to be reckoned with and her younger sisters have alternately appreciated and chafed at her strong will. They are as stunned as the rest of the small community when she and her husband Proctor are arrested, and in a heartbeat the family goes from one of the most respected in town to utter disgrace. The worst part is, not even her sisters are sure exactly what happened.

As Althea awaits her fate, Lillian and Viola must come together in the house they grew up in to care for their sister’s teenage daughters. What unfolds is a stunning portrait of the heart and core of an American family in a story that is as page-turning as it is important.

The Object of Your Affections by Falguni Kothari
368 p.; Fiction/Indian American

A young widow agrees to be the surrogate for her workaholic best friend, whose husband is pressuring her to finally start the family she’s promised him. As the pregnancy progresses, the dynamic between the couple and the widow changes in both surprising and unsurprising ways, forcing each to confront truths about themselves and their relationships with each other.

Negrophobia: An Urban Parable by Darius James
208 p.; Satire/African-American

Darius James’s scabrous, unapologetically raunchy, truly hilarious, and deeply scary Negrophobia is a wild-eyed reckoning with the mutating insanity of American racism. A screenplay for the mind, a performance on the page, a work of poetry, a mad mix of genres and styles, a novel in the tradition of William S. Burroughs and Ishmael Reed that is like no other novel,

Negrophobia begins with the blonde bombshell Bubbles Brazil succumbing to a voodoo spell and entering the inner darkness of her own shiny being. Here crackheads parade in the guise of Muppets, Muslims beat conga drums, Negroes have numbers for names, and H. Rap Remus demands the total and instantaneous extermination of the white race through spontaneous combustion. By the end of it all, after going on a weird trip for the ages, Bubbles herself is strangely transformed.

Note: First published in 1992, out of print since 1993.

The Good Immigrant: 26 Writers Reflect on America, edited by Nikesh Shukla & Chimene Suleyman
336; Essays

From Trump's proposed border wall and travel ban to the marching of White Supremacists in Charlottesville, America is consumed by tensions over immigration and the question of which bodies are welcome. In this much-anticipated follow-up to the bestselling UK edition, hailed by Zadie Smith as "lively and vital," editors Nikesh Shukla and Chimene Suleyman hand the microphone to an incredible range of writers whose humanity and right to be here is under attack.

  • Chigozie Obioma unpacks an Igbo proverb that helped him navigate his journey to America from Nigeria.
  • Jenny Zhang analyzes cultural appropriation in 90s fashion, recalling her own pain and confusion as a teenager trying to fit in.
  • Fatimah Asghar describes the flood of memory and emotion triggered by an encounter with an Uber driver from Kashmir.
  • Alexander Chee writes of a visit to Korea that changed his relationship to his heritage.

These writers, and the many others in this singular collection, share powerful personal stories of living between cultures and languages while struggling to figure out who they are and where they belong. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, troubling and uplifting, the essays in The Good Immigrant come together to create a provocative, conversation-sparking, multivocal portrait of America now.

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

#BookReview: SECOND TIME AROUND by D.L. White

Synopsis: Potter Lake, GA is a small town filled with life and love, where the hustle and bustle slows down just enough to notice what— and who is around you.

For recent transplants Sage Owens and Bennett Alexander, their greatest losses marked the end of to have and to hold. While time marches on, it doesn’t move in reverse; it doesn’t bring back the love of your life.

These two souls are drawn together in this quaint town and discover that their meeting is not so accidental but fated. What time may bring this holiday season is a second chance at love.

Review: I love, love, LOVE romances with seasoned characters. Seasoned being my kind way of saying older characters. I love that the characters have lived so there's no falling in love at the drop of a hat. They've seen some things and they know some things and their romances or, in some instances their situationships, seem to be more realistic than the typical knight in white armor riding in to save some damsel in distress.

Sage and Bennett are such a cute couple and even though we only meet them in the initial stages of their new romance, I feel like they're going to be a successful couple. Sage's relationship with her daughter is also adorable and I'm hoping (from my fingers to the author's eyes) that she stars in her own Potter Lake romance soon.

D.L. White's Potter Lake romances are quickly becoming some of my favorites. They rank right up there with Farrah Rochon's Moments in Maplesville and Beverly Jenkins' Blessings series, set in Henry Adams, KS. It's obvious I love a good, small town romance, right? I can't wait to see what happens in Potter Lake next.


Friday, February 8, 2019

New Books Coming Your Way February 12, 2019

Living on the Borderlines by Melissa Michal
250 p.; Fiction/Native American

For the loosely connected Seneca community members living in Upstate New York, intergenerational memory slips into everyday life: a teenager struggles to understand her grandmother's silences, a family seeks to reconnect with a lost sibling, and a young woman searches for a cave that's called to her family for generations. With these stories, debut writer Melissa Michal weaves together an understated and contemplative collection exploring what it means to be Native.


Elsewhere Home by Leila Aboulela
224 p.; Short stories/Global

A young woman’s encounter with a former classmate elicits painful reminders of her former life in Khartoum. A wealthy Sudanese student studying in Aberdeen begins an unlikely friendship with a Scottish man. A woman experiences an evolving relationship to her favorite writer, whose portrait of their shared culture both reflects and conflicts with her own sense of identity.

Shuttling between the dusty, sunbaked streets of Khartoum and the university halls and cramped apartments of Aberdeen and London, Elsewhere, Home explores, with subtlety and restraint, the profound feelings of yearning, loss, and alienation that come with leaving one’s homeland in pursuit of a different life.


The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo
384 p.; Historical fiction/Malaysia

Smart, vivacious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dancehall girl to help pay off her mother’s Mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin may finally get the adventure she has been hoping for.

Across town, 11-year-old houseboy Ren is on a mission of his own, racing to fulfill his former master’s dying wish: that Ren find the man’s severed finger, lost years ago in an accident, and bury it with his body. Ren has 49 days to do so, or his master’s soul will wander the earth forever.

As the days tick by, a series of unexplained deaths wreak havoc on the town, along with whispers of men who turn into tigers. Ji Lin and Ren are pulled together in ways they couldn’t have imagined, as their increasingly dangerous paths lead them from lush plantations, to hospital storage rooms, to a ghostly dreamscape.

The Night Tiger draws us into a world of servants and masters, ancient superstition and modern ambition, sibling rivalry and forbidden love. But anchoring this dazzlingly ambitious, propulsive novel is the intimate coming of age of a boy and a girl, each searching for their place in a society that would rather they stay invisible.


Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima
192 p.; Fiction/Japan

It is spring. A young woman, left by her husband, starts a new life in a Tokyo apartment. Territory of Light follows her over the course of a year, as she struggles to bring up her two-year-old daughter alone. Her new home is filled with light streaming through the windows, so bright she has to squint, but she finds herself plummeting deeper into darkness, becoming unstable, untethered. As the months come and go and the seasons turn, she must confront what she has lost and what she will become.

At once tender and lacerating, luminous and unsettling, Yuko Tsushima’s Territory of Light is a novel of abandonment, desire, and transformation. It was originally published in twelve parts in the Japanese literary monthly Gunzo, between 1978 and 1979, each chapter marking the months in real time.

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Mahalia Watkins Soul Food Mysteries by A.L. Herbert


The Hallmark Channel and Jessica Fletcher (Murder, She Wrote) might have you convinced that cozy mysteries are strictly for and about white women. Dear readers, I'm here to tell you they are not! During my extended hiatus from blogging, I took the time to read a diverse array of books and discovered not only do I love cozy mysteries, there are a numbers of series featuring black protagonists, written by black authors.
Welcome to Mahalia's Sweet Tea--the finest soul food restaurant in Prince George's County, Maryland. In between preparing her famous cornbread and mashed potatoes so creamy "they'll make you want to slap your Momma," owner Halia Watkins is about to dip her spoon into a grisly mystery. . .
The titles are a bit kooky, but I love A.L. Herbert's Mahalia Watkins Soul Food Mysteries. While most cozies are set in small towns, Herbert sets hers in Washington DC and Prince George's County in Maryland. Halia, full-time restaurateur and part-time detective, and her quirky cousin Wavonne find themselves in a number of predicaments. And, as is usually the case, there's a police detective who hates their interference, but has to admit the cousins are pretty good at figuring things out.

I love the realness of the characters: Halia is serious and focused on making her restaurant a success; younger cousin Wavonne is focused on designer clothes and snagging a rich man (providing well-timed comic relief; and Halia's mother, Celia, is focused on getting Halia married off so she can give her grandkids. One more thing to love about the series is the  recipes the author sprinkles throughout the book. They're not at the end of every chapter, so you don't feel like you're reading a cookbook, but there are enough recipes for you to know the author loves food and loves cooking. I'm dying to trip out a few of the recipes myself, the butter pecan cake in particular.

Murder with Fried Chicken and Waffles and Murder with Macaroni and Cheese are out now. Murder with Collard Greens and Hot Sauce is out March 26 and I promise you're going to love it like a red velvet cupcake!

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Is This Thing Still On?


It’s been so long since I’ve reviewed a book over here or even thought about blogging that I had to take a minute to remember my password. I can’t remember exactly when I decided to give up on blogging, but from the looks of things, it was almost a year ago. There was no particular reason, there were a variety of reasons. Life got extremely busy, books got a little boring and you guys weren’t necessarily responsive, so I didn’t think my voice would be missed. And, honestly, it probably hasn’t been. But I enjoy talking about what I’ve read, even if I can’t do it consistently. So, I’ll be back February 9th and I’m going to try to share reviews, even if they’re just mini reviews, with you weekly. See you then.