Stay With Me by Alexandria House (A Book Review)

Angela Strickland has struck out twice at love. She has reconciled within herself that a future where real love reigns supreme is not in the cards for her. She settles fully in her life as a successful hair vlogger. To earn additional money, she rents the other side of her duplex.

Ryan Boye is in town on work assignment. He’s a corporate career man, who likes to keep things causal in his romantic relationships. He is the epitome of “hit it and quit it” and determines to stand ten toes down in that philosophy.

In an effort to make his stay feel a little more like home, he leases a place and his path crosses with Angela. What he finds is that Angela is not the typical woman he’s accustomed to. His fascination with her is deep and leaves him confused.

Angela may have sworn off love, but what she cannot deny is her attraction to her tenant Ryan. However, she is determined to keep things professional between them. How will things play out between these two?

This was a fantastic love story. Ryan and Angela’s mutual attraction heated up the pages (well audio for me; I listened to the audio version). Alexandria House’s books have been on my TBR list for some time. This is the first book I’ve read from her, but certainly not my last. Her storytelling is phenomenal. I am about to dive deep into her other books. Looking forward to it. I have a lot of catching up to do. I suspect it’s going to be a fun and wild ride.

Rating 10/10

Walk Through Fire: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Triumph by Sheila Johnson (A Book Review)

Sheila Johnson overcame immeasurable odds. When she was just sixteen, her family imploded when her father left their family for another woman. It destroyed her mom. Defiantly determined she would not be caught in this predicament as a woman, she set out to prove just that. However, this singular event shaped Sheila in more ways than one.  

Music was her refuge. She became an accomplished violinist and managed to get a full scholarship to college. She was well on her way. Then she met a young, ambitious man named Bob Johnson in college. They began dating and married a few years later. Her life and self-esteem was being shaped and molded by her new husband. His drive and ambition had carried them to great heights professionally.

However, behind closed doors, their marriage became a toxic breeding ground of lies, deceit, and emotional abuse. She had come full circle to the moment of her youth that she was determined not to experience again. When her thirty-three-year marriage to Bob ended, Sheila was struggling to find herself and rebuild life on her own terms.

She walked through shame, humiliation, male chauvinism, and racism to find her sweet spot. She became a philanthropist, entrepreneur, and formidable businesswoman. Sheila has indeed walked through fire and triumphantly come out on the other side.

I am grateful to Sheila Johnson for sharing her story. It is a story of courage, redemption, and fierce determination to keep moving forward.

Impactful moments/quotes from the book:

Sheila was reading in her bunk bed and was climbing down the ladder to come down for dinner.

Sheila’s dad to Sheila: “Just jump, I’ll catch you,” Dad said stretching his arm toward me. He’d never suggested such a thing before, so I was excited. I threw myself off the bunk, grinning from ear to ear-and then smack! I hit the floor hard. Confused, with the wind knocked out of me, I looked up at him.

“That’s a lesson,” my father said. “Don’t trust anybody.”

I started crying. “I trusted you,” I said. But he just turned and walked out of the room.

Sheila: “I wouldn’t want to live through that pain again. But the truth is, I wouldn’t be the woman I am today if I hadn’t gone through it. I walked through fire and survived. I am the salamander.”

Sheila: “My journey here has been arduous, as you’ve read in these pages. But going through those awful times built my character and my strength.”

Rating 10/10

Don’t Cry For Me By Daniel Black (A Book Review)

Jacob Swinton’s life is coming to a close. He is met with a sense of urgency to write to his son Isaac. He shares his life’s story through a series of letters. The letters; part revelation, part remorse, detail Jacob’s upbringing, his marriage, his divorce, and his beliefs on manhood, etc.

Jacob’s view on life and manhood is challenged when his son Isaac is born. Isaac, an expressive child bubbling over with feelings, did not enter the world in typical male fashion. This serves as the catalyst for the complexities that make up he and his father’s relationship.

Jacob’s letters shed light into the intergenerational divide of societal norms that is so deep between father and son. Although vestiges of growth is apparent in the letters, it struggles against his innate inability to have a demonstrative love towards his son. He is a flawed man ridden with inner conflict that is true to men of a particular generation. 

What I appreciated most about Don’t Cry For Me is the authenticity. It shed light on the less than ideal reality of some family relationships.

*****Some insightful and poignant quotes from the book:

November 27th, 2003 chapter
“If you still don’t understand why I’m telling you all this, just keep reading. A man’s history is all he has. It says more than his mouth ever will. You’ll see what I mean soon enough. ” ~Jacob

November 28th, 2003 chapter
“I stood there wondering how this had happened to me, thinking of all the things I’d do differently  if I could live again. It was useless thinking,  if course. Nothing was about to change. Not for me. There are no do-overs in this life. Either you get it right or wish you had.”~ Jacob

December 24th, 2003 chapter
I always called you boy. When a father calls a boy son, he’s declaring his pride in him. I didn’t feel this way about you, even when you got grown.~Jacob

January 17th, 2004 chapter
The more I read, the more I saw myself. Knowledge is a funny thing, Isaac. It informs by exposing. It shows you precisely how much you don’t know.~Jacob

January 26th, 2003 chapter
Silence isn’t always quiet though. It troubles a man’s soul, forcing him to admit what he’d rather forget.~ Jacob

February 5th, 2004 chapter
Reading taught me that a man’s own life is his own responsibility, his own creation. Blaming others is a waste of time. No one can make you happy if you’re determined to be miserable.

All I wanted was to look you in the face and tell you I’m sorry. I had wounded you beyond my capacity to heal you.

Love doesn’t make us perfect; it makes us, want to be. By the time you discover this, your imperfections have done their damage.

February 8th, 2004 chapter
A man’s son is his truth unadorned. When he can look at him and be proud, his fatherhood is complete.

February 10th, 2004
You must learn to uproot unwanted seeds without destroying the entire harvest.

Rating 10/10

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson (A Book Review)

Eleanor Bennett is dying. She lost her husband, her children aren’t speaking to each other, and her daughter is disconnected from the family. This is not how she wants things to end. Eleanor solicits the help of a close family friend, Mr. Mitch, to record her telling the story of her life and for it to be played upon her death.

Byron and Benny thought they knew their mother. After hearing their mother’s story, in her words, everything they ever knew was not as it appeared. They are trying to understand how this newly revealed information will lead them forward.

Although it was quite lengthy and a little disjointed at times (the “seemingly random” characters as well as the constant era changes), it was a good book. It’s a rich story that kept me engaged. Wilkerson strategically brings everything full circle in the end. The journey had many excursions, but the destination was worth it.

Rating 8/10

Holler, Child by Latoya Watkins (A Book Review)

Eleven powerfully rich stories are the building blocks that compile this masterpiece.

In “Cutting Horse”, a story set against the backdrop of the recent police killings towards black citizens, introduces us to a former drug dealer/ horse breeder who gave up life as he knew it for his college educated wife. Although, he got a piece of the American dream for himself and his family as a homeowner in a HOA community, his free spirit is chained and stifled. When a horse breaks loose and stumbles onto his property, he and the horse connect, and he is reminded of the inner freedom he tucked away so long ago.

Highlighted quote: “Black boys need two things, a man to help form them and something they could look away to.”

In “Sweat”, a woman’s resentment of her husband’s existence grew to epic proportions one evening.

Highlighted quote: “He always choosing the wrong damn thing”.

In “Everything’s Fine”, a young pastor openly expresses his displeasure in his wife’s downward spiral. He ends his diatribe of disappointment in her by entertaining thoughts of a separation. She in turn blames him for ruining her life. She blames her biological daughter for her sudden hate of children. All this juxtaposed with the outward display of her seemingly gracious service of being a foster mother. She silently seeks retribution in the most sinister way.

Highlighted quote: “God make folks just the way he want them.”

Highlighted quote: “Makeup couldn’t cover the ruin of her life.”

This collection of stories blew me away. I often had to sit in a reflective state after reading. Judgement is turned inside out as the characters present the depths of their reality. Watkins knows how to get to the heart of a matter and arrest the reader and make us invested in what is being shared.

Watkins is a fearless writer who reached down in the crevices of the human experience to extract choices, pain, regret, sorrow, and trauma and fine-tuned it to create literary gold.

I am in awe of her stories and looking forward to reading more from her. She is a force to be reckoned with in the literary world for sure. Now, I must back track and check out her debut novel, Perish.

Rating: 10/10

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (A Book Review)

Janie Crawford was a young girl born with a freedom in her spirit. That freedom was stifled by her grandmother”s  fear for her future.  Janie’s grandmother knew she was all she had in her world, and wanted to ensure security for Janie when she was no longer here.

Janie fought against  it initially. Though she didn’t lean into it, she did resign herself to her grandmother’s suggestion that she marry an elder gentleman named Logan Killicks. Janie settled into her marriage with Logan. Janie’s  restlessness bubbling beneath the surface, created conflict almost immediately. The union appeared shaky from the onset.

When Joe Starks passes through town, Janie takes her chance to escape from what she perceives as a life of gloom. Joe Starks was distinguished and self assured, a man going places. They married and hopped on a train to a town in Florida where he became the mayor. Janie became a woman expected to stifle her own ideas. As the mayor’s  wife, she was not allowed to mingle too closely with the common townsfolk.

Once Joe Starks is no longer in her world, she emerges as freedom personified. She looses her hair and takes to wearing overalls, and embraces her innate carefree spirit.

A young and carefree man named Tea Cake crosses Janie’s path. From the  beginning of their encounter, Tea Cake was Janie’s home. Wild, beautiful, and free best describes their love and union.They celebrate each other with joyful abandon. Janie is encouraged to come forth fully as herself,  which was discouraged prior to Teacake’s presence in her life.

A storm appears in their town and changes things;  bringing with it loss and uncertainty. It changes the course of Janie’s life profusely. Janie’s journey of walking in the freedom she always had within was  fascinating to experience as a reader. I read this book years ago as a high school student and loved it. It was a joy to read it all these years later as an adult. The story is part cautionary tale, part deliberate allowance. Their Eyes Were Watching God is truly a classic work art .

** Impactful Words From The Book**

It’s uh known fact, Pheoby, you got tuh go there tuh know there.

Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves.”

Rating 10/10

Hush Delilah by Angie Gallion (A Book Review)

Delilah Reddick is a woman trapped in her own life. She’s in a brutal cycle of abuse at the hands of her husband, Chase. Her best friend Carmen constantly pleads for her to leave, but it’s not so simple.

As Delilah folds into herself and examines her life both present and past, she sees a very small glimpse of a silver lining in the unraveling of the tight grip of the abuse. However, exactly what that silver lining will cost, is a thought that shakes Delilah to her core. There is her son Jackson, who would be collateral damage in it all.

This book delves deep into multiple perspectives of what abuse and the decisions linked to it looks like, depending on what a person’s viewpoint about it is. It explores how an abused person wrestles with vaccillating and ruminating thoughts and the difficulty in deciding weighty matters.

Delilah’s inner guilt leaped through the pages. I felt her guilt of how she found herself in what she viewed as a very pitiful place in her life. It appeared most of her guilt involved what she viewed as a betrayal of her own self.

As a reader, it was important to know the delicacy of the situation and not judge her, but to feel compassion. This book opened my heart and made it sensitive to inner battles that others may have to deal with, sometimes with very arresting characteristics. The author really captured the essence of the whirlwind, the fog, and the ties of a toxic relationship.  It was a great book.

Rating: 10/10

The Two Lives of Sara by Catherine Adel West (A Book Review)

Sara King, an expectant mother, appears in Memphis under the cloak of hidden truths to start life anew. She arrives at a boarding house ran by a fiesty but warm matriarch named Mama Sugar. Shortly after Sara arrives, she gives birth to a son she names Lebanon.

They’re embraced as family by Mama Sugar, her husband Mr. Vanellys, their grandson William, the boarders and some of the people in community. Sara’s hard exterior starts to soften. It all but vanishes when she starts a romance with William’s teacher, Jonas.

Sara’s embraces her newfound joy. But when the past collides with the present, it brings with it the possibility of forever altering the future for Sara and the people in her life both now and in the future.

There were so many profound moments in this story. The writing was impeccable and poignant. This story will stay with me always. Some of the quotes that both moved me and gave me pause were as follows:

“Well, what’s done is done but I found out when people go through hard places, they don’t need tough’ an they don’t need coddling. They need mercy.” ~Mr. Vanellys

“Friendships are strange evolving collections of laughter and fights and secrets, this rarified brew of humanity you choose to share with another person. And I want that again. To feel close to someone. To share with someone.” ~Sara

“So if you struggle or see someone struggling, seek understanding. You don’t know the wars people fight on the inside. No one save the Lord knows about those inside battles.” ~ Sara’s mother.

“No one likes to own the harm they did to others, it makes them hurt in a forever kind of way.” ~ Sara

“Everything we go through reshapes us, makes us new.”~ Cora

Rating: 10/10

So We Can Glow by Leesa Cross-Smith (A Book Review)

This is a great collection of stories covering the nuances and idiosyncrasies of womanhood. It explores their emotions, loves, memories, and reasons of why some women choose some things that govern their lives. Below are some of the stories that I liked most.

We Moons: I loved the sheer honesty of womanhood. It was beautifully written. It reached deeply into intricate parts of being a woman.

Pink Bubblegum and Flowers: Is about the awareness of the harshness of life’s circumstances layered right beneath the innocence of youth. The sweet smell of bubblegum and flowers provided a calming balm for the less than ideal situation at hand. It cemented the mutual love in the midst of chaos.

Knock Out The Heart So We Can Glow: This story represented the deep longing of a woman wanting love in her very specific way.

Some lines that were poignant were: “She was drawn to the dusty items no one else seemed to love.”

“She asked her husband if he remembered when she was eating pineapple and started to cry because she was alive and some people weren’t. Reminded him of that morning after church when her hair was baptism-wet. How she sat at the kitchen table, born again, drowning in the sunlight.”

“Her husband was a good man and she loved him, but he didn’t know how to be special, how to glow. She said it was pretty simple and she’d teach him. There was no big secret. You just had to let the things in your heart get real dark first.”

Two Cherries Under A Lavender Moon: This was about the sweetness of fantasy love and the heady, fast, and swelling feeling of which that love provides.

Boy Smoke: This story was about a wife discovering her husband’s affair and kicking him out of the house, while his students were driving pass their home. Some memorable lines from this story were: “Her face looks like a country song: smudged black eyeliner, red wine teeth.” “He’s Max and I’m Nina,” Coach’s wife says, snapping to normal in the way that only women can when they’re holding up the Earth. Nina says thanks to us and smokes at the front of the car, standing there like a crownless queen in streetlamp light.”

Dandelion Light: This is a sweet account of acquaintances slow dancing towards reconnection.

I absolutely loved the lyrical and poetic flow of how these stories were written. It captured the essence of each subject of each story. It was a beautiful collection of stories. This is the second body of work I read from this author and it was another great reading experience.

Rating: 9/10

Mrs. Wiggins by Mary Monroe (A Book Review)

Maggie Franklin grew up in a family of ill-repute. Her mother was a former prostitute, while her father was the town drunk. She becomes really fast friends with Hubert Wiggins. Hubert, comes from a prominent family in their community of Lexington, Alabama. Both Maggie and Hubert knows deep things about each other that solidifies their friendship.

As they grow up, Hubert becomes one of the most eligible bachelors in their town. Maggie, on the other hand is not so lucky. Both of their parents however, are pressuring them to get married. Neither of them are interested in marriage at the time. However, in an attempt to stop the parental pressure, they make a pact to marry one another. Their family is complete when their son Claude is born.

The Wiggins become the most revered family in Lexington. Maggie now has a charmed life. She’s the daughter-in-law of a pastor, her husband runs the family funeral business and works part-time at the turpentine mill, and she’s the doting mother to a wonderful son.

All is going great until her son grows up and becomes involved with a young woman named Daisy. Daisy proves to be a very challenging person. Claude’s relationship with Daisy sets a domino effect of events in Mrs. Wiggins life that threatens all that is good in it.

I enjoyed this story a lot. It showed how life can turn out, depending on how the person living it perceives the circumstances that they’re faced with. It was a story loaded with life lessons. I was hooked from start to finish.

Rating 9/10