Benny and Byron's mother has just died, leaving behind a lengthy recording and a black cake. The tape exposes a multitude of secrets and new truths to the siblings, who have been estranged for years after a blowup at a family Thanksgiving over Benny's sexuality. As readers, we get to 'hear' the tapes along with the siblings and follow along in the aftermath.

The book is well-researched and there were many threads of the story that had me riveted. However, there were too many POVs and time jumps and they could be hard to track. I think the author tried too hard to fit in every single social justice issue imaginable. Other than that, I found this enjoyable, and I learned a lot about a culture very different from my own.

If you want a book that encompasses motherhood, family, colonialism, and value of traditions this book is for you.

If you are unfamiliar, black cake is a rich dark cake of British-Caribbean origin with dried or candid fruit soaked in rum or brandy and other spices. It is a recipe passed among generations.

What I love the most is the symbol of the Black Cake throughout the shifting ideas and values of home and family. Stories are weaved together across generations but our histories and traditions have a profound ability to shape us into who we become.

4.5 stars ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Format: e-book
Content ⚠️ : death of parent, sexual assault, racism, abuse, suicide attempt, sexism. (This is a very heavy read so please look up all triggers)

4.25/5 stars, I support the hype around this book. The premise and plot were intriguing. At times this felt lIke it could have been edited down further (some of the sections about Byron and Benny had my interest waning), but loved the idea that we don't really know our parents. The scenes and background on Covey's childhood on the island were enjoyable. Will be recomending this one!

This book was so beautifully written. I honestly can not believe this is the authors debut novel! The characters are well defined, captivating and convincingly flawed. The story was soooo good. A multigenerational story with just as many ingredients as Black Cake. I loved this book so much.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange of my honest opinion.

When I read a fantastic book like this, I always wonder "How did the Author do it"? This is a story I'd call complete! I was grabbed from the first sentence, and it was an emotional rollercoaster for the rest of the novel. I LOVED THIS BOOK!!!! It's a story of family, pain, discrimination and just so much more. I could not put it down! and read it in 2 days! Now I want some rum cake along with my box of Kleenex! Thank you to Netgalley and Random House/Ballantine Books for the egally, and thank you to the author, Charmaine Wilkerson! This is brilliant!

Black Cake is an amazing story about family, the traditions we hold onto and the secrets we bury. I love how the author shows the sister/brother relationship morphing from close to distant to close again. The distance swimming was a great metaphor for life which I found inspiring.

The book Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson is a compelling read. It tells a story of grief and family that touches the heart.

How in the world is this a debut novel?! This story is beautifully told and had me captivated the whole time. The characters all felt so incredibly real.

Benny and Byron are estranged siblings who reunite for their mother’s funeral and to hear from her lawyer. He tells them their mother had two final requests:

⭐️ To listen to her final words to her children through a recording she left with him
⭐️ To eat the black cake that she left in her freezer when the time is right

As the siblings listen to the recording they find out a lot about their mother and where she came from. This book jumps back and forth between what is currently going on and their mother’s past. If you love beautiful stories told as layer after layer is uncovered (Malibu Rising is an example that kept jumping out) then you will love this book.

I seriously can’t wait to discuss this one with our book club next weekend. If this book isn’t on your radar it definitely should be.

This book is phenomenal. Charmaine’s writing is exquisite. Everyone is currently taking about this book and after finishing I can understand why. The way she was able to weave all of the stories together was fantastic.

Black Cake is an amazing debut! I was fully engrossed in this multi-generational story of family secrets. I look forward to reading more from this author in the future!

I enjoyed this book so much! The collision. of past and present was so perfectly woven together throughout the story. I was consistently kept engaged with the need to uncover the hidden family secrets in the recipe and their mother's life. I'd highly recommend to any lovers of literary fiction and mysteries!

It took a bit to get connected to all the characters that were introduced in the beginning but once that happened, I was all in. Two estranged siblings are brought together after their mother's death when she leaves them two things- a voice recording telling the story of her life and a traditional Caribbean black cake made from a family recipe. As the siblings discover a mother they never knew, they begin to better understand their family history and heritage. It's rich and beautifully written. I think it would make an excellent book club choice. There is so much to discuss!

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

I was hesitant to pick this one up. I read it concurrently with WHAT MY BONES KNOW and I was nervous about the combination.

Something about the synopsis led me to believe it was going to be emotionally charged and although it was heartfelt it was written at a distance which allowed me to access the themes comfortably. And I appreciated that.

The writing was textural and rich and layered. I recommend to readers looking for solid writing, a captivating family mystery, and themes around strained relationships.

Out now!

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine for this advanced copy!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

If you enjoy family dramas with some mystery then this is the book for you. Benny has been estranged from her family for years due to them not being accepting of her lifestyle. When she is called home after her mother's death to bury her she and her brother Byron must find some common ground on which to reconcile to move forward. What she doesn't expect is a tape left to them by their mother. This hours long tape exposes them to their mother's past which springs upon them several surprises. These surprises rock Benny and Byron's world and will forever change them.

The story winds us from the Caribbean to the US. It brings us back and time and up to the present day. It jumps from their mother's point of view starting as a young girl telling her story to the modern times conversations around dealing with the new revelations. Throughout it all is the constant of Black Cake and the importance of this dish to their history and their present day selves.

The writing in this one was beautiful and so well done. I will be looking for more from this author in the future and will not hesitate to pick up another of her books.

I highly recommend the audio version this one as well which I purchased after publication.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House/Ballatine books for a copy of this one for review.

Black Cake is excellent! I loved it from beginning to end. The characters are so vivid and so memorable, especially Mrs. Bennett. I loved the fact that the story shifted in time and to different characters. I was sad that Mrs. Bennett wasn't able to tell her story to her children in person, but I understand why she told the story the way she did to her family.

I enjoyed so many things about Black Cake: the character development, the changing timelines and narrators, and the family saga. The book is so well-written, I never would have guessed it was a debut. Wilkerson has the ability to use few words while still painting a vivid picture of the landscape and lives of her characters.

This was a book club pick for Literary League, and we had a great time discussing it. It’s definitely a solid choice if you need a pick for your book club.

Thank you @randomhouse @netgalley for my review copy!

I ended up enjoying this one, but it took me a long time to read it. I just didn’t find myself feeling like picking it up very much. I enjoyed the character development and I liked the ending, I just didn’t quite love it as much as others have. I’ve seen some really stellar reviews for this one, so if you like slower paced, family dramas then I’d recommend giving this one a try.

I grew up with a mother who told me often about the black cake made in her Caribbean homeland. It honestly sounded awful to me. A sticky cake packed with old figs and dates and bitter alcohols. But for years, I watched her soak her fruit in jars of rum, adding a splash of brandy here, a handful of raisins there. She taught me how to bake, and continues to teach me to trust my instincts in the kitchen as her mother and grandmother taught her.

Black Cake follows two siblings as they listen to their mother’s final words and the story of her journey from the islands to sunny Southern California. They discover that much of their pain is not new. They learn that parents are people, that some truths don’t ever see the light of day, and that family can be full of betrayal and love at the same time.

I picked up this book because I thought I knew what I was getting into. I thought maybe someone wrote a story about my mother, about me. Maybe someone wrote a story about having a complicated past, about kids being confused about where their people come from. About looking strange, having murky genetics. About living with a parent who longs to go home. I thought I might be picking up a book about racism, about colonization, about cultures being stolen and blended beyond recognition.

This book is all that and then some. It’s an exhaustive and colorful fable about love and lies, about loyalty and luck. My mother is maybe the luckiest and unluckiest person I’ve ever met. And I saw that sentiment echoed back at me in the pages of Black Cake. I saw how the histories and narratives of an entire people have been distilled down to “being exotic” and “being foreign” and frankly being misunderstood. And how that interpretation is projected onto them, and how hard it is to break free of it.

There are parts of Black Cake that seem far fetched. There are a lot of characters, a lot of names that change and shift over time. There are a lot of sad facts masked as fiction. The writing could be tighter, more judicious. But the fact is, anyone who has heard these stories from the mouths of their main characters knows that Black Cake, and the real lives it reflects, are tales that last a life time. They unravel through decades, through children and the children of children. They unspool in deathbed confessions and DNA tests and “your mother’s cheekbones” and “your father’s eyes.”

I found each character believable. I found them sympathetic. I found them impassioned in a way I know to be real. More than anything, I found myself staring back at me from these pages, and that’s truly one of the greatest gifts of literature - representation, acknowledgment, truth.

I might compare the scope of this novel to something like Pachinko. Both authors understand the value of lineage, the necessity to explain that where we come from directs where we go.

Whether you come from a long line of black cake bakers or whether you’ve never heard of delicacy, I highly recommend picking up this book. You may learn something about a time and place and people you never thought to consider. At the most, you may develop a compassion for circumstances unlike your own, for those of us who do not fit neatly into the boxes set out for us.

I enjoyed this story. I like how it goes through the mother's whole life that led up to when she married the kids father. It was a bit hard to follow sometimes because it was so back and forth so I did give it 4 stars in stead of 5. It was an enjoyable read and I alternated the audiobook which was also very well done! Along with telling the women's story, it goes into how hard it was coming from the islands and "fitting in" or getting opportunities in the US as well as other countries. It was also fun to know about the black cake and it made me go look up a recipe ! Overall very enjoyable and I would recommend!

This family drama is so well written that it is hard to believe it’s a debut novel. The set up for the book is that a woman named Eleanor has died, and when her adult children come home for her funeral, her lawyer plays them a recording talking about her life, comprised almost entirely of people and stories they have never heard of. Interspersed with this are portions from each of her children’s perspectives, set both in the past and present, and the occasional chapter from other people’s perspectives as well. With lots of characters and jumping around in time, and in place from an unnamed Caribbean Island and London in the 1960s, and California in the 2000s, it definitely was a lot to take in at first, but ultimately so worth it.

This was definitely a slow starter, but became deeper and more resonant as it went along, with a last quarter or so of the book which was so moving that I found myself crying multiple times.

4.5 stars.