The Partner Plot by Kristina Forest

Welcome Back, Booklovers! The Partner Plot is the second book in the Greene sisters series by Kristina Forest and one that I was seeing splashed across my social media a lot in February so once my library hold came through for the audiobook I decided it was finally time to read. 

Violet Green is a celebrity stylist whose career is fast rising thanks to her largest client Caramel Kitty. However her personal life is a mess having dumped her fiancé months ago and he ran off with one of her clients. While in Vegas celebrating with Caramel Kitty, she runs into her high school sweetheart Xavier Wright, who is there with a friend. After club hopping, and several drinks later Violent and Xavier wake up in bed together. They quickly realize they didn't actually marry and instead signed up for the fake package and part ways. When Violet lands a big interview with a magazine, the interviewer starts asking questions about her love life and in an effort to redirect attention back to herself she what starts out as a small lie becomes more complicated. She and Xavier find themselves in each other's lives again and the old feelings that never died come to the surface.

The book starts off with a very YAish prologue recapping how they met, started dating, and broke up during high school before parting ways. I don't think hinging a second chance romance on a finnicky high school relationship worked in the book's favor. With both having been in relationships with other people there's little reason for them to still be holding onto each other as the one that got away. And adult Violet and Xavier have very little in common in both their personal and professional lives.

There was a lot of opportunity here with Violet having a career most people can only dream of to have a fish out of water story with Xavier having to adjust especially since he felt inadequate since she had her life more together than he did. But they end of spending the majority of their time together in the small town Violet ran away from.

It was also pretty long in length for a contemporary romance, particularly one that doesn't do anything new or exciting with the tropes it uses. There was a point where it felt like the book could've ended but instead kept going with minimal drama. The audiobook narrators were good and kept me reading managing to add some life into the story. There were attempts to add more depth to the characters by including Violet's drama with her mother and Xavier's career woes but more could've been done to beef those plots up.

Black Book Recs Inspired by Sinners

Like many people I saw Sinners this past week during opening weekend. I'm not one to go to the movie theaters but with everyone talking about it I wanted to be informed and be apart of the conversation. I was seeing a lot of book recs that had me scratching my head prior to watching the movie. And when I left the theater I was even more perplexed. Yes, there were vampires in the movie but I wouldn't say Black vampires were the main focus. This movie felt like a love letter to the Black community of the American South. It really drove home the message of preserving history and the importance of humanizing the people who have come before us. Despite how painful it could be at times Black people during the Jim Crow era were able to find pockets of joy amid pain. I've spoken a few times over the past couple of years how reading Black Historical Fiction really helped me see these people as more than just people from the past. Even prior to Sinners release I was seeing a lot of discussion on my timeline bout Black Southern storytelling. Sinners made me think a lot about Black Southern stories that weave the past with the present.  So keep reading for just a few books you should check out if you haven't already. 

Black Candle Women

Generations of Montrose women—Augusta, Victoria, Willow—have always lived together in their quaint California bungalow. They keep to themselves, never venture far from home, and their collection of tinctures and spells is an unspoken bond between them. But when young Nickie Montrose brings home a boy for the first time, their quiet lives are thrown into disarray.

For the family has withheld a crucial secret from Nickie all these years: any person a Montrose woman falls in love with will die. Their surprise guest forces each woman to reckon with her own past choices and mistakes. And as new truths about the curse emerge, they're set on a collision course dating back to 1950s New Orleans’s French Quarter—where a hidden story in a mysterious book may just hold the answers they seek in life and in love…

Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership

To understand the contemporary racial wealth gap, we must first unpack the historic attacks on Indigenous and Black land ownership. From the moment that colonizers set foot on Virginian soil, a centuries-long war was waged, resulting in an existential dilemma: Who owns what on stolen land? Who owns what with stolen labor? To answer these questions, we must confront one of this nation’s first sins: stealing, hoarding, and commodifying the land.

Research suggests that between 1910 and 1997, Black Americans lost about 90% of their farmland. Land theft widened the racial wealth gap, privatized natural resources, and created a permanent barrier to access that should be a birthright for Black and Indigenous communities. Rooted traces the experiences of Brea Baker’s family history of devastating land loss in Kentucky and North Carolina, identifying such violence as the root of persistent inequality in this country. Ultimately, her grandparents’ commitment to Black land ownership resulted in the Bakers Acres—a haven for the family where they are sustained by the land, surrounded by love, and wholly free.

A testament to the Black farmers who dreamed of feeding, housing, and tending to their communities, Rooted bears witness to their commitment to freedom and reciprocal care for the land. By returning equity to a dispossessed people, we can heal both the land and our nation’s soul.

The Thing About Home

Home is not a place—it’s a feeling. Casey Black needs an escape. When her picture-perfect vow renewal ceremony ends in her being left at the altar, the former model turned social media influencer has new fame—the kind she never wanted. An embarrassing viral video has cost her millions of followers, and her seven-year marriage is over. With her personal and business lives in shambles, Casey runs from New York City to South Carolina’s Lowcountry hoping to find long-lost family. Family who can give her more answers about her past than her controlling mom-slash-manager has ever been willing to share. What Casey doesn’t expect is a postcard-worthy property on a three-hundred-acre farm, history, culture, and a love of sweet tea. She spends her days caring for the land and her nights cooking much needed Southern comfort foods. She also meets Nigel, the handsome farm manager whose friendship has become everything she’s never had. And then there are the secrets her mother can no longer hide. Through the pages of her great-grandmother’s journals, Casey discovers her roots run deeper than the Lowcountry soil. She learns that she has people. A home. A legacy to uphold. And a great new love story—if only she is brave enough to leave her old life behind. 

Revival Season

Every summer, fifteen-year-old Miriam Horton and her family pack themselves tight in their old minivan and travel through small southern towns for revival season: the time when Miriam’s father—one of the South’s most famous preachers—holds massive healing services for people desperate to be cured of ailments and disease. This summer, the revival season doesn’t go as planned, and after one service in which Reverend Horton’s healing powers are tested like never before, Miriam witnesses a shocking act of violence that shakes her belief in her father—and in her faith.

When the Hortons return home, Miriam’s confusion only grows as she discovers she might have the power to heal—even though her father and the church have always made it clear that such power is denied to women. Over the course of the next year, Miriam must decide between her faith, her family, and her newfound power that might be able to save others, but, if discovered by her father, could destroy Miriam.

When the Reckoning Comes

More than a decade ago, Mira fled her small, segregated hometown in the south to forget. With every mile she traveled, she distanced herself from her past: from her best friend Celine, mocked by their town as the only white girl with black friends; from her old neighborhood; from the eerie Woodsman plantation rumored to be haunted by the spirits of slaves; from the terrifying memory of a ghost she saw that terrible day when a dare-gone-wrong almost got Jesse—the boy she secretly loved—arrested for murder.

But now Mira is back in Kipsen to attend Celine’s wedding at the plantation, which has been transformed into a lush vacation resort. Mira hopes to reconnect with her friends, and especially, Jesse, to finally tell him the truth about her feelings and the events of that devastating long-ago day.

But for all its fancy renovations, the Woodsman remains a monument to its oppressive racist history. The bar serves antebellum drinks, entertainment includes horrifying reenactments, and the service staff is nearly all black. Yet the darkest elements of the plantation’s past have been carefully erased—rumors that slaves were tortured mercilessly and that ghosts roam the lands, seeking vengeance on the descendants of those who tormented them, which includes most of the wedding guests. 

As the weekend unfolds, Mira, Jesse, and Celine are forced to acknowledge their history together, and to save themselves from what is to come.

The Ballad of Perilous Graves

Nola is a city full of wonders. A place of sky trolleys and dead cabs, where haints dance the night away and Wise Women help keep the order. To those from Away, Nola might seem strange. To Perilous Graves, it’s simply home.

Perry knows Nola’s rhythm as intimately as his own heartbeat. So when the city’s Great Magician starts appearing in odd places and essential songs are forgotten, Perry knows trouble is afoot.

Nine songs of power have escaped from the piano that maintains the city’s beat, and without them, Nola will fail. Unwilling to watch his home be destroyed, Perry will sacrifice everything to save it. But a storm is brewing, and the Haint of All Haints is awake. Nola’s time might be coming to an end.

Devils Kill Devils by Johnny Compton

Welcome Back, Booklovers! It's been a minute but I'm glad to be back and I'm switching gears with a horror novel. Devils Kill Devils was gifted to me by Macmillan Audio. I had read The Spite House by Johnny Compton and was curious to see how he followed it up. While I'm not a huge horror reader I do like to indulge every now and again. 

Sarita has had a guardian angel named Angelo watching over her since she was a child and he rescued her from almost death. He has since saved her life on multiple occasions. The book opens with Sarita's husband Frank being killed by Angelo on their wedding night. Sarita is confused by why her guardian angel would feel threatened by someone so close to her. moves from solely Sarita's perspective to also focus on her mother in law Harrah, and Cela, also know as the godmaker. 

While The Spite House kept me engaged from start to end even as it built upon the story and branched out into new perspectives, Devils got murkier and harder to follow. After a strong start the book lost momentum in the middle. There was definitely some interesting vampire lore mixed in as well as commentary on religion but the book start to meander and make the reader wonder if certain points are even important to the overall plot. It should've been more streamlined and kept the focus on Sarita. This book feels less like a horror and more like a dark fantasy and a lot could've been done with the demon and vampire lore. But the pacing was off here where it felt like a lot was happening but nothing was really happening. Harrah's chapters in particular felt more tell than show than tell.

Imani Jade Powers does a good job narrating but not much can be done to elevate the book during the slower, messier parts.

Black Horror and SFF

Welcome Back, Booklovers! So I heard people wanted more Black genre fiction and I'm definitely one of those people. But I wanted to share some that are already out and available for purchase because we need to support these authors so they can continue to get published. So i wanted to list some Black Horror and SFF that I feel is more underrated. Some of these I read, some are on my tbr, and some I'm in the process of reading. 

Curdle Creek by Yvonne Battle-Felton

Welcome to Curdle Creek, a place just dying to make you feel at home.

Osira, a forty-five-year-old widow, is an obedient follower of the strict conventions of the remote all-Black town that’s stuck in the past and governed by ominous rituals including a one in, one out population policy. Osira has always been considered blessed, but her luck changes when her grown children run off to parts unknown, escaping Curdle Creek’s harsh traditions, she comes in second to last in the Running of the Widows, and her father flees after his name is called in the annual Moving On ceremony.

Forced to jump into a well in a test of allegiance, Osira finds herself transported first back in time, and then into another realm where she must answer for crimes committed by Curdle Creek. Exile forces her to jump realms again, landing Osira even farther away from home, in rural England. Safe there as long as she sticks to the rules, she quickly learns there are consequences for every kindness. Each jump could lead Osira anywhere but will she ever find a place to call home?

The Fallen Fruit by Shawntelle Madison 

On a rainy day in May 1964, history professor Cecily Bridge-Davis begins to search for the sixty-five acres of land she inherited from her father’s family. The quest leads her to uncover a dark secret: In every generation, one offspring from each Bridge family unit vanishes—and is mysteriously whisked back in time. Rules have been established that must be followed to prevent dire consequences: Never interfere with past events. Always carry your free Negro papers. Search for the survival family packs in the orchard and surrounding forest. The ribbon on the pack designates the decade the pack was made to orient you in time. Do not speak to strangers unless absolutely necessary. With only a family Bible and a map marked with the locations of mysterious containers to aid her, Cecily heads to the library, hoping to discover the truth of how this curse began, and how it might be ended. As she moves through time, she encounters a circle of ancestors, including Sabrina Humbles, a free Black woman who must find the courage to seize an opportunity—or lose her heart; Luke Bridge, who traverses battlefields, slavery, and time itself to reunite with his family; Rebecca Bridge, a mother tested by an ominous threat; and Amelia Bridge, a young woman burdened with survivor's guilt who will face the challenge of a lifetime—and change Cecily's life forever. It is a race through time and against the clock to find the answers that will free her family forever.

Where the Dead Brides Gather by Nuzo Onoh 

Bata, a young girl tormented by nightmares, wakes up one night to find herself standing sentinel before her cousin’s door. Her cousin is to get married the next morning, but only if she can escape the murderous attack of a ghost-bride, who used to be engaged to her groom.

A supernatural possession helps Bata battle and vanquish the vengeful ghost bride, and following a botched exorcism, she is transported to Ibaja-La, the realm of dead brides. There, she receives secret powers to fight malevolent ghost-brides before being sent back to the human realm, where she must learn to harness her new abilities as she strives to protect those whom she loves.

Devils Kill Devils by Johnny Compton 

Sarita has been watched over by a guardian angel her entire life. She calls him Angelo, and keeps him a secret. But secrets can’t stay buried forever… When Angelo murders someone she loves, Sarita begins to see what's really been lurking in the shadows surrounding her. And she will have to embrace the evil within if she hopes to make it out alive.

Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn

We are a people who do not forget.

Survivors from a flooded kingdom struggle alone on an ark. Resources are scant, and ravenous beasts circle. Their fangs are sharp.

Among the refugees is Iraxi: ostracized, despised, and a commoner who refused a prince, she’s pregnant with a child that might be more than human. Her fate may be darker and more powerful than she can imagine.

The Improvisers by Nicole Glover

Velma Frye is many things. A pilot, a former bootlegger, a well-seasoned traveler, a jazz pianist…and a wielder of celestial magic. She’s also a member of the mystical Rhodes family as well as an investigator for arcane oddities for a magic rights organization, dealing with both simple and complicated cases. And when a pocket watch instigates a magical brawl after one of her flight shows, things become very complicated. In 1930s America, enchanted items are highly valuable, especially in the waning days of the magical Prohibition. As Velma digs deeper, she discovers the watch is part of a collection of dangerous artifacts manipulating people across the country—and in some cases, leading to their deaths. Something about all this is tickling Velma’s memories, and the more she discovers, the more these seemingly isolated incidents feel as if they’re building to something apocalyptic. Connecting the dots isn’t easy, though, and further complicating her work is journalist Dillon Harris. He hounds her steps, and while not actively sabotaging her investigation, he also clearly knows more than he lets on. Whether it’s his presence that she finds so vexing or his easygoing charm, that’s a mystery she isn’t interested in solving. Because someone is out there seeding cursed objects with the intent on wreaking havoc, and Velma will have to use every trick in her tool kit, including some well-placed magical improvisation, to win the day.

Daughter of the Merciful Deep by Leslye Penelope

Jane Edwards hasn't spoken since she was eleven years old, when armed riders expelled her family from their hometown along with every other Black resident. Now, twelve years later, she's found a haven in the all-Black town of Awenasa. But the construction of a dam promises to wash her home under the waters of the new lake.

Jane will do anything to save the community that sheltered her. So, when a man with uncanny abilities arrives in town asking strange questions, she wonders if he might be the key. But as the stranger hints at gods and ancestral magic, Jane is captivated by a bigger mystery. She knows this man. Only the last time she saw him, he was dead. His body laid to rest in a rushing river.

Who is the stranger and what is he really doing in Awenasa? To find those answers, Jane will journey into a sunken world, a land of capricious gods and unsung myths, of salvation and dreams made real. But the flood waters are rising. To gain the miracle she desires, Jane will have to find her voice again and finally face the trauma of the past.

This World Is Not Yours by Kemi Ashing-Giwa

After fleeing her controlling and murderous family with her fiancée Vinh, Amara embarks on a colonization project, New Belaforme, along with her childhood friend, Jesse.

The planet, beautiful and lethal, produces the Gray, a “self-cleaning” mechanism that New Belaforme’s scientists are certain only attacks invasive organisms, consuming them. Humans have been careful to do nothing to call attention to themselves until a rival colony wakes the Gray.

As Amara, Vinh, and Jesse work to carve out a new life together, each is haunted by past betrayals that surface, expounded by the need to survive the rival colony and the planet itself.

There’s more than one way to be eaten alive.

Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown

As acting captain of the starship Calypso, Jacklyn Albright is responsible for keeping the last of humanity alive as they limp back to Earth from their forebears’ failed colony on a distant planet.

Faced with constant threats of starvation and destruction in the treacherous minefield of interstellar space, Jacklyn's crew has reached their breaking point. As unrest begins to spread throughout the ship’s Wards, a new threat emerges, picking off crew members in grim, bloody fashion.

Jacklyn and her team must hunt down the ship’s unknown intruder if they have any hope of making it back to their solar system alive.

Love, Lies, and Cherry Pies by Jackie Lau

Welcome Back, Booklovers! Crawling out of a reading slump slowly and I decided to read a romance from my backlist. I own many Jackie Lau books all gifted by publishers or free e-book offerings  and I'm ashamed to say I haven't read most of them. This was the only one I had the audiobook for so it became my in the car read. And once I was a significant amount into it I decided to finish it outside of the car. I received a finished copy of Love, Lies, and Cherry Pies from Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review.

 

Emily Hung is an author who also works as a barista and is still barely making ends meet. She's in her early 30s and unsatisfied about her marital status, inability to afford a decent apartment on her own downtown, and her position as an author of color in the very racist publishing industry. In an effort to stop the pressure from family in regards to her love life she decided to fake date Mark Chen, a seemly perfect prospect hand selected by her mother.

The title truly makes no sense in the context of this book. I can probably count on one hand the number of times cherry pie was mentioned. It wasn't a significant food/dessert to the couple nor did it hold special meaning in the story. So I'm perplexed that it made it's way into the title. We get a couple mentions of a cherry pie milkshake but truly it was nothing special to the story. Nobody in this is a baker either. They never bonded over cherry pie!

Though I'm someone who is invested in publishing even I experienced fatigue when it came to the constantly info dumps about the publishing industry. Maybe some of the information might be fascinating to readers who have no idea about the inner workings of the publishing industry. If you've spent years on bookish social media around authors of color none of what was discussed here is new to you. At times it felt like Emily was an avatar for the author and her frustrations with publishing. The constant unprompted inner monologues about everything wrong with the publishing industry and how being an author who is traditionally published worked, detracted from the romance itself. The author also failed to highlight the positives when it came to Emily as a creative. I can't even remember what her books are normally about let alone what the current book she was writing is about. Every chapter she was trying to write but couldn't because she was in a writing slump.

Another weird choice was the switching from most of the book being Emily's pov to randomly including Mark's pov in the second half of the story. It didn't add any new insight and only seemed to lengthen a story that was droning on at a slow pace all book. Mark had a cute cat but was otherwise a very forgettable love interest that had little chemistry with Emily.

The themes of being in your thirties and not achieving everything you thought you would hits very close to home for so many people. There's so many aspects that are very relatable in this story that were bogged down by pacing and repetition.