WOW!! One of the best books I've read all year! Can I give it 6 stars?

Black Cake is the incredibly complex tale of of a young woman from The Caribbean and her very challenging and satisfying life. The story begins shortly after her death when her son and daughter are "forced" to listen to their mother's voice on a recording. Through chapters, each about the different characters in her life, the reader slowly learns "what exactly happened" to the young woman. Each section is shocking and somehow wonderful.

I LOVED this story of intertwined lives and fates, and how Charmaine Wilkerson ties all loose ends together in an awesome manner. I think I'll read it again!

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to experience Black Cake!

Put this on your Feb TBR. I loved this book. An engrossing and original family/friendship story that touches on important issues including identity, racial equity and sustainability, From the Caribbean to the UK and US — through food and swimming — this is a book to savor.

5 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
I would definitely be recommending this book to readers on my Instagram bookstagram account.

In development as a Hulu series, Black Cake takes us from present day California to a tale about a younger swimmer in the Caribbean. When Byron and Benny’s mother dies, she leaves them with her black cake and messages about her past.

Wow, what a debut! Charmaine Wilkerson has weaved an incredible tale of family, culture, tradition, and secrets. It was dual-time line and like usual, I enjoyed the past time line much more, but the current time line was necessary to get to the past. So much happened to our protagonist, but it was told cleverly and authentically. I loved learning about the Caribbean culture and the food. There was a lot to this book, but behind all that it was simply an entertaining tale as well.

“I spent so much of my life keeping this from you, but I owe this to you. I owe it to you to let you know about my past because this is your story too.”

Black Cake comes out 2/1.

This book had an interesting and absorbing plot, but in the end, I just didn't like the writing style. The writing was very clunky and awkward. I kept rolling my eyes during certain passages. I appreciate the story that Wilkerson was trying to tell, and I usually enjoy literary fiction, but this novel just felt lackluster for me. I hate to say this but I kept thinking of a corny soap opera while reading this. All the characters felt fake and wooden. The family secrets felt kind of silly to me as well. There was nothing profound and meaningful going on here. The only positive I can think of is the short chapters and that stunning cover art. Overall, I expected more, just another run-of-the mill family drama. Ho-hum.

Thank you, Netgalley and Random House for the digital ARC.

This book will really grab your attention. The details of the characters and how they are all interwoven were intricate and well thought out. The story is beautiful woven through different timelines and view points. It could be difficult keeping up with all the characters and connections but I think it really works well here. I can see this one receiving a lot of buzz once it’s published next year! And now off to make this Caribbean black cake!

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC!

A multi generational saga that is initiated by the death of Eleanor Bennett and the eight hours of recorded history about her early life that she records for her children.
The themes are multiple-love, friendship, racism, misogyny,environmental and environmental issues among others. All of the characters are well developed, but it is Eleanor who is the heart and soul of the novel.The BLACK CAKE of the title refers to the Caribbean cake made for special occasions. A good read well worth your time.

<i>Black Cake</i> starts on an unnamed West Indies island. Covey Lincook is a young woman who has grown up there with an alcoholic, gambling father. While he adores Covey, his debts and troubles are large enough to get in the way. Covey has a fierce spirit. She and her best friend Bunny are serious endurance swimmers. That endurance and strength will sustain them both through all of life's ups and downs.

When Covey is married to the town thug to repay her father's gambling debts, she is distraught. But when that thug drops dead at their wedding, Covey sees an opportunity to escape. As a suspect in his murder, Covey embarks on the life of a fugitive. The story travels quickly back and forth between Covey and the people she loves--her children, her best friends, her (second) husband. The characters each bring their own story, each touched with pain and lined with inspiration.

At times, I was wrapped up in the book and the stories. At times, I felt like it dragged despite the short chapters and frequent shifts in storytelling. In all, I felt like this was a unique story with wonderful characters. There's a lot of heaviness, but also a lot of love. Recommended.

Thank you to the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Favorite quote:
"But in his heart, Byron is a California kid and a black man first. This is his identity. Of course, in the minds of others, he is a black man, first, second, and always, which would be fine if it weren't to the exclusion of everything else."

"Sometimes, the stories we don’t tell people about ourselves matter even more than the things we do say."

If you liked The Vanishing Half for its estranged sibling dynamic, dual past/present timelines, and themes of race, identity, and familial expectations, then Black Cake might be your next favorite read. (Even the covers are similar enough to draw comparisons!)

"The people you loved were part of your identity, too. Perhaps the biggest part."

In Black Cake, two estranged adult siblings are forced to reunite after their mother’s death. Byron and Benny learn, through a lengthy recording she prepared before she died, that their mother kept many secrets, and that their family’s history is more complicated than they knew.

"I owe it to you to let you know about my past because this is your story, too."

Black Cake is a layered and complex multigenerational story, nonlinear and very literary in style. Charmaine Wilkerson takes her time to slowly unravel the threads of the story, which makes the pacing feel a bit slow in places, especially the first third of the book.

"What about a person’s life? How do you make a map of that? The borders people draw between themselves. The scars left along the ground of one’s heart."

But Wilkerson’s prose is nuanced and evocative, and she weaves in elements of mystery, family drama, self-discovery, loss, grief, and acceptance. Her underlying message, of how our present and future will be ultimately shaped by our past, is hidden at times when the pacing slows, but is never lost. Overall, an impressive debut! Highly recommended for lovers of historical fiction, generational sagas, and multicultural representation.

——

A huge thank-you to Charmaine Wilkerson, Ballantine, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Wow, this book really just blew my mind. It’s hard to believe that it is a debut writer. The story is beautiful woven through different timelines and view points. It can become difficult keeping up with all the characters and connections but it serves the story well. I would definitely recommend this book and I know it will receive a lot of buzz once it’s published next year.

I was fortunate enough to receive an advance copy of Black Cake. Living in Southern Florida, I thought I would enjoy the Caribbean theme of the book. However, what really captured my imagination was the series of intricately woven short stories that were written so seemlesslly as to heighten my anticipation of the next action. I recall the first time I encountered Eleanor thinking who is this. But her story captures and pulls together the stories of all the other characters.

Well done Ms. Wilkerson! I look forward to your next book.

I already have this book on my list of books I will discuss at our New Year New Books programs! Also considering whether I should attempt to make a black cake.

What a phenomenal book! Charmaine Wilkerson has truly wow’ed me with her debut novel Black Cake! Centering around, Byron and Benny Bennett, in the wake of the death of their mother, Eleanor. The estranged siblings know that the death of their beloved mother will forever change their lives, but what they don’t realize is that Eleanor had a lot of hidden secrets. Before her death, Eleanor audio-recorded her life story. Through the recordings, Benny & Byron discover that there was a lot they didn’t know about their mother! Wowwowow!

This novel had me at hello! Charmaine Wilkerson has knocked it out of park with this debut! The storyline does a fantastic job tackling the fragile and intricate familial bond of the Bennett family. The pacing was perfect and the character development was on-point! I found myself daydreaming about the Bennett’s when I wasn’t glued to my kindle—for me, that a surefire sign of a top read! Black Cake is a 5+++ star novel that will absolutely stay with me! I highly recommend Black Cake for a monthly book club selection! I am looking forward reading whatever Charmaine Wilkerson comes out with next!

Black Cake, by Charmaine Wilkerson, is a beautifully written and poignant book about one family's complexities, secrets and undying love that leads to discovery and overall growth. Black Cake will leave you spellbound by the incredible storytelling about a family that you will not soon forget. Years pass, secrets are revealed, betrayal is evident, but the reader will understand that each act was bound in family loyalty and devotion. The rich storytelling beautifully creates images of days gone by and generations of people bound by tradition, culture and love. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this eCopy for an honest review. It's a lovely tale that many readers are certain to enjoy.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of Black Cake for my honest review. While we learn that black cake is a one layer cake, this story has many layers, and that is what make this book one to both intrigue and at times frustrate the reader. The novel unfolds to tell Covey’s life story along with all of those who are intertwined along the way. The story is told in two time periods “then” and “now.” It is also broken down into chapters by the multiple characters we meet. Overall, Wilkerson did a good job of building a story of triumph over what seem to be impossible obstacles, and love over what could have ended in misery and hate. With that said, parts of the book felt long and unnecessary. I would still recommend this as a good read and am glad I had the opportunity to preview it.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Benny is feeling emotional after losing his mom. His mom leaves him with a message that makes him question the mother he thought he knew. He found out that he has a step sister who was adopted. He learns more and more about his mom troubled past. This book was very emotional.

Wilkerson's debut novel is delicious! Like the Caribbean Black Rum Cake, the life of this novel's heroine is a mixture of races and cultures. What is left in the end are her offspring and he legacy of the black cake. .

This story is a recount of a mother's life and her two (read "three") kids that find their way to each other. I loved Wilkerson's style of writing and it was a slow, steady read for me. It was a powerful debut novel.

I did not particularly like the bouncing of time frames, but it was very well stated at the beginning of each chapter what time frame we were entering into. Speaking of chapters, the titles of them were blasé and I would have rather had numbered sections.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

We are all little bits granulated from far, far bigger bits.

Charmaine Wilkerson creates a tale so far-reaching that we have to almost give pause after each chapter. Wilkerson is a storyteller blessed with the ability to go deep, so deep that we can almost hear the breathlessness of her characters and feel their angst and sorrow as if it were our own.

Black Cake begins with an ending. Eleanor Bennett has passed away in California and her friend and lawyer, Charles Martin, has requested the presence of her children, Byron and Benny. Eleanor has left a video for them to view that contains roadways traveled by Eleanor and unbeknownst even to her own children. She felt it was time. But time had been cruel in so many ways to this family. Decisions made, life choices reached for and condemned by others, and secrets held in dark places.

And the Bennett family lived life in fractured pieces. Benny left a family gathering for Thanksgiving dinner in 2010 with the sharpness of words serrating her heart. She never looked back.......never once to her parents, never once to her brother. And in those times, her father died. No farewell from Benny. Byron continued to stay by his mother's side. Byron, the successful sea biologist and writer. Benny, the lost wandering soul, searching for her niche in life and never quite finding it.

Wilkerson knows that all stories, great and small, have an origin. The Bennett's tumultuous story has its beginnings on an unnamed island in the West Indies of the Caribbean. It's the 1960's and we are introduced to a young girl named Covey. It is Covey's story that will be at the center of a myriad of concentric circles tipped by the thrust of her stone. As readers, we will be grasping the hardcover of this book with both hands. Wilkerson sets one adventure upon the back of another. She's relentless in her telling. This island serves as a springboard to London, to California, and a few other spots along the way.

Black Cake is a specialty. It stems from rich ingredients steeped over time in rum and port and served on the best of occasions. Black Cake seems to reflect life somehow. The end result is not often guaranteed, but having an inner appreciation for the differing textures and fragrances of rare ingredients seems to lift the spirit to a higher plane.

I received a copy of this novel through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Random House (Ballantine Books) and to the talented Charmaine Wilkerson for the opportunity.

Byron and Benny are estranged siblings who have reunited after their mother’s death. Their mother, Eleanor Bennett, has left an eight hour tape describing her life which is full of surprises and secrets. These stories make up the bulk of the book. In the end Byron and Benny are united with a sibling, another relative, and their mother’s childhood best friend. This tape answers many questions that plagued all the characters throughout their lives. The black cake, a traditional Jamaican dessert, binds Eleanor to her roots. I enjoyed this book and thank the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.