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African American & Black

Review

A Shimmer of Red

by Henrietta Thornton

I eagerly await the books in the Odessa Jones series, and the latest offering is better than ever. Odessa (Dessa) is a realtor/caterer in suburban New Jersey. Life is going well—housing sales are way up—until one of her realtor colleagues, Anna Lee, is killed in a hit and run while out jogging. Could it have been murder? Dessa can’t help but become involved. She goes deep into her colleague’s life, uncovering a surprising past and a present in which Anna was being stalked. But why would anyone threaten this young woman? In a brilliant move on the author’s part, Dessa ends up discovering her connection to Anna, one that extends back decades to Dessa’s first fiancé, when she was barely in her twenties. Part of the delight of this series, which is set in a diverse community, is the recurring characters, from Dessa’s family-like colleagues to restaurateur Lennox Royal—a possible love interest?—to Aunt Phoenix. Dessa’s second sight—she sometimes has the ability to see aura-like glimmers over people, among other paranormal skills—is a gift she has along with her aunts. It’s introduced deftly in the book, and even skeptics will find the protagonist’s gift wholly credible–at least while they’re wrapped up in the plot. This is billed as a cozy—there is a cat and plenty of tea—but Wesley pushes a bit beyond the genre’s traditions. Dive in with this volume, but if you have the time, start with volume one, A Glimmer of Death. You won’t be disappointed.

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Review

All the Sinners Bleed

by Henrietta Thornton

A school shooting in fictional Charon County, VA, reveals horror and catalyzes reckoning in S.A. Cosby’s eagerly awaited follow-up to Razorblade Tears. This is, unsurprisingly, a masterpiece of Southern noir, but that’s selling it short: it’s a fantastic novel, period. The first responders to the shooting are led by Sherriff Titus Crown, a Black man who won a contentious, racist battle for his seat and who now safeguards Klan members and kind neighbors alike. Titus is able for them all, alternating deep kindness with cutting, politically savvy one-liners that put racists in their place. (Appropriate, given his lack of fondness for “stand[ing] there like an extra in Gone with the Wind.”) But even he is thrown when the investigation into the school shooter—a Black man killed at the scene by white cops—uncovers a grisly secret. Join Titus and his meticulously drawn, flawed family, colleagues, and townsfolk for a deep introspection on how evil begets evil and good begets good. And watch for the gripping movie that’s sure to spring from Cosby’s pages.

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Review

Life and Other Love Songs

by Brian Kenney

A brilliant and moving telling of a Black American family’s struggle to survive despite traumas both old and new. It’s 1981 Detroit, and the Armstead family is celebrating Ozro’s 37th birthday. Treated to lunch by his brother, with a large celebration planned for that night, Ozro heads back to work. Except he never gets there. Ozro disappears, leaving his briefcase and suit coat in his office, abandoning his wife Deborah, his young daughter Trinity, his family and friends. Shifting between the perspectives of Ozro, Deborah, and Trinity, Gray reaches back to Orzo’s time as part of the Great Migration, traveling from the south to Detroit in the 1970s; to his early courtship with Deborah, an aspiring singer; and to Trinity growing up in a world that’s been shattered. Ozro’s disappearance is like the sun, with the other characters as moons, forever circling around it. “I wondered about him all the time because absence was not the same as death,” says Trinity. “It was worse, given all the not knowing.” But it turns out that the mystery of Ozro’s vanishing is only one in a series of traumas that extend from his childhood to his death. Beautifully executed and tremendously poignant, this book is absolutely perfect for reading groups.

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Review

The Other Mistress

by Henrietta Thornton

In the introduction by Williams (The Wife Before, The Perfect Ruin), readers are forewarned, that child abuse and sexual assault feature in this novel; they should still be prepared for whiplash when this turns from a “girl’s night in” kind of story to something much, much darker. Black couple Adira and Gabriel are living the high life—at first appearance. Adira’s an entrepreneur, the successful owner of a luxury clothing brand, Lovely Silk. Gabriel isn’t as successful—Adira’s keeping them afloat—but she doesn’t mind. She’s crazy about her husband and is shattered to see an email pop up on his phone that makes it clear he’s seeing another woman, Jocelyn. Actually, make that two women, Jocelyn and Julianna, with the former woman, when confronted by Adira, offering to join ranks with the wronged wife to make Gabriel pay. Thus starts the darkness, with stalking, lies, and desperation taking turns with another story, of two little girls, one of whom is being sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend. Williams ramps up the tension and the mystery from the first page so that as the stories converge and a terrible truth is revealed, readers will be both enthralled and aghast. One for all those who’ve done what they had to do and lived to tell the tale.

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Review

The Survivalists

by Henrietta Thornton

Ready for something completely different? This brilliantly odd and unexpected tale sees striving corporate lawyer Aretha go on—finally!—a great date, one that doesn’t end with her crawling out the bar’s bathroom window to escape (yes, she has) or wondering mid date if she’s already dead. Aaron does arrive in the bar looking like he “[chops] wood for a living right there in the middle of Brooklyn,” but that’s not so unusual for the area. What is unusual is that he’s part of the “dead parents club.” His mom died of cancer while Aretha’s were gored by deer, but her past dates have made her less choosy. This might be why Aretha tries to chalk it down to individuality when she finds that Aaron and his housemates have built a bunker in their garden to keep safe when the world is destroyed, eat only optimized protein soy bars, and own guns (not just a few). As Aretha drops further into this bizarro world, into crime, and away from Aaron, the sadness underneath the spectacle shows itself: this tale is about the rot that sets in when you sell something that doesn’t belong to you. Plagiarism features, with housemate James a perpetrator and Aretha, in a separate event, a victim, but even worse is Aretha and Aaron selling versions of themselves that can never be. A must-read debut.

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Review

That Dangerous Energy

by Brian Kenney

This novel should come with a warning label: start this book at your own risk. It’s that suspenseful, that seductive. We meet our hero, Morgan Faraday, running through the NYC subway to escape from Sebastian, her ex-fiancé, and two armed rent-a-cops. How does love go so wrong? We then jump to ten months ago for the backstory that answers this question. Morgan—who identifies as Black, she has North African heritage via Moorish Spain, but is often assumed to be white—escaped from a poor Pennsylvania town for NYC and art school. A textile artist, she’s struggling when she meets billionaire Sebastian Reid, the CEO of one of the world’s largest energy companies. The answer to all of Morgan’s problems? Perhaps, but sleeping with a man you don’t love and barely find attractive is still work, and even with best friend Dashawna’s how-to-marry-a-millionaire advice, Morgan remains conflicted. Marrying white men for financial security, while necessary, was never a good decision for the women in her family. Worse, once she moves in with Sebastian, she discovers that his claim that his company is going green is just a façade, and he’s still responsible for several ecological disasters, with communities of color the most adversely affected. Encouraged by an oh-so-hunky environmental activist, Morgan begins to spy on Sebastian, recording his calls and filming his meetings. It’s incredibly anxiety-producing, and readers will be madly racing to the book’s surprising conclusion. Social commentary, feminism, racism, family history, courtroom drama, plenty of suspense, and a very hot love affair all come together for one powerful read.

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Review

Jackal

by Henrietta Thornton

Liz Rocher hasn’t been to her hometown of Johnstown, PA, in 14 years, but now her childhood best friend is getting married and it’s time. She’s got her bridesmaid dress and one other outfit, just enough to attend the event and then get the hell out. Liz faces s two main problems back home: her strict Haitian mother, who doesn’t hide her disappointment about her daughter’s single lifestyle, and the woods behind the wedding venue, where a little girl vanished years ago. While the wedding is in full swing, history seems to repeat itself, and soon Liz is fighting Johnstown’s racism-tinged apathy as she discovers that many of the area’s Black girls have gone missing over the years, each one vanishing on the summer solstice. Haitian American Adams’s thoughtful language first drops us into the private phobia of a damaged young woman and slowly pulls back to reveal wider horrors: the sudden taking of the girls and the lingering physical and social markers of the infamous Johnstown flood, which largely killed poor Black families in the valley while white residents lived in the hills. Adams’s exciting conclusion finds us in the grip of supernatural terror that makes this debut novel a great recommendation for horror fans who like a side of mystery.

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Review

Race : A Caleb Moon Thriller

by Henrietta Thornton

Reflecting the dark days of summer 2020, this book opens with Black reporter Caleb Moon covering the police killing of a Black boy and the local anger that has ensued. His editor is tiptoeing around the coverage and wants to cut the inflammatory detail that the police also shot the boy’s pet (“It’s just a fucking dog.”) He knows it’s relevant, though, when Caleb explains that the animal that three police officers found such a violent threat could fit in a colleague’s tiny purse. This is a case of overkill, and Caleb wants justice. He’s at first naïve enough to think that it might be in the cards, but then he attends the police chief’s speech about the situation, where white interlopers throw a bottle at the cops and disappear. Hope is close to vanishing; it evaporates entirely when a Black colleague is lynched. Things can hardly get worse, but Caleb soon finds himself in jail when he won’t plead guilty to causing trouble at the speech. His experiences in jail, coupled with the growing mystery of who’s behind the racist corruption eating away at his unnamed small town, paint a stark picture of a world built on greed and white supremacy. Readers will be eager to meet this understated, determined young protagonist in further mysteries. The book doesn’t reveal SLMN’s identity, but notes that he is a New York Times best-selling author and a movie producer.

Originally reviewed as Race: A Black Lives Matter Thriller

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Review

Someone Had to Do It.

by Brian Kenney

Publishers: Wondering how to keep crime fiction relevant, cutting edge, and appealing to younger millennials and older Gen Z? Then take a page out of the impressive debut Someone Had to Do It. Brandi may have landed her dream job unpaid internship at the fashion house Simon Van Doren, but she wasn’t planning on the microaggressions and reminders that as a young, Black woman she doesn’t fit into the culture (“code for we-can’t-handle-your individuality but-since-we-don’t-want-to-seem-racist-we’ll-invent-this little loophole”). But Brandi’s tenacious—she’s also putting herself through fashion school—and with a little help from dreamboat boyfriend Nate, an up-and-coming football star, she manages to hang in there. When Nate offers to put in a good word with Taylor Van Doren, Simon’s daughter—they go back to prep school—Brandi can’t say no. Taylor’s an it-girl, a model and fashionista who has it all and then some. While Brandi hopes that friendship with Taylor will help launch her career, the opposite happens. Taylor—the absolute best villain I’ve read this year—sets Brandi up for a fall where she risks losing everything she’s worked so hard to achieve. This is one smart, hot, bingeable read that’s got Attn: Netflix stamped all over it.

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Review

Two Parts Sugar, One Part Murder

by Brian Kenney

Maddy Montgomery is in need of a major reset. Spoiled rotten—Daddy’s an admiral—the recent Stanford grad and social-media-marketing maven loves her Laboutins and Jimmy Choos, as well as her doctor fiancé . Until he abandons her at the altar. And the ceremony was being livestreamed. Time for #FreshStarts #NoLookingBack. As luck would have it, Maddy has just inherited her great-aunt Octavia’s estate in New Bison, Michigan, a quaint town on Lake Michigan. The catch? She needs to live in the town, run her aunt’s bakery, and care for Babe, a 250-pound English mastiff—I defy any reader not to fall in love with him—for one year. Octavia was one smart, independent woman, and it seems like she also knew that Maddy needed a reset. Maddy’s willing—does she really have a choice?—and before you can say Hicksville, she’s making new friends, learning to crack open an egg, and even dating. Until the much-maligned Mayor gets killed, and Maddy’s fingerprints are found on the murder weapon. Help comes from the Baker Street Irregulars, a group of her great-aunt’s friends, who help her navigate the treacherous waters of Great Bison and present a different set of values, values that Maddy finds herself adopting. A great start to a series that is part poignant, part humorous, and part suspenseful while introducing a wonderful, new, African American heroine.

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