An estranged brother and sister arrive for their mother’s funeral, only to discover she has left them a lengthy recording that upends everything they know about their family. Wilkerson’s many layered and endlessly twisting novel directly confronts ideas of identity as these siblings have their foundation pulled out from under them and must reassess everything they know about the Bennet family and, in turn, themselves. This book is packed with ideas, and while it occasionally feels a bit overstuffed the fast moving pace keeps you page turning as lives twist and history unravels itself into the present.

The story is about loss, about the decisions we make that we can never take back, the sacrifices we are forced to make. It’s a reminder that sometimes our stubbornness gets in the way of a happy life. But it’s also about being a survivor. It’s a powerful, moving story on a personal level.

Wilkerson impressively juggles a lot here, rotating between the past and present in brief chapters that, while written entirely in third person, spirals through the characters to reframe on their specific lives, emotions and thoughts. The style gives each character their individualism while also weaving them together to view each individual as connected through the community of their shared lives. ‘Like many people, he isn’t any one thing,’ Wilkerson writes of Byron, but this sentiment is universal for each character and as the story progresses we see just how true this is.

What a book!!!! As estranged siblings Byron and Benny's mother dies, they are brought together to read her will which is actually a voice recording with a cryptic message. While Byron and Benny battle their own demons and work through their personal tension with one another, they also try to decipher exactly what their mother's last dying message is all about and along the way they learn details about their past and their family's past. While the story does get super deep and personal, sometimes making it hard to follow or hard to keep pushing through-i thought it was worth while and exciting nonetheless.

This novel is fantastic! It is the story of a family and friendships of a family from the Caribbean. It explores friendships, love, corruption, Caribbean culture, and even swimming! You cannot read this novel without caring not only about the characters. You will also learn a bit about how to make a black cake!. This is one of my favorite novels of all time. I am hopeful that it will become a classic. Readers of this novel will not be disappointed. I look for to reading more novels in the future from this talented first time author.

Multi-generational book that explores a family after the death of the mother. An immersive read, with strong story telling.

"The biggest moments in our lives are often just that, a matter of seconds when something shifts and we react and everything changes."

I love the idea of tracking food and how it changes from region and culture. That once they couldn't get a bread right until they tried it with salt water (because that was what was available to those making it). I love knowing that many have family recipes that they pass down to their kids - I love that they don't have measurements but instead just list a group of items with no idea how much of each to add.

This story is a bit of a tangled ball of string. It's all scrambled in the beginning. Two kids come home at the request of a an attorney to play a recording left by their recently passed mother. It details a lot of secrets they had no idea about.

But the story isn't linear. It bounces around with each secret and they jump through huge sections of the mother's life. Mixed in are the "now" sections of what's going on in the kids' world and how they are handling the secrets. It was a bit hard to untangle, but the chapters are really short so it's easy to keep flying through the story and try to keep it all straight.

I really liked the struggles of the kids, the bigger cast of characters as they were revealed both past and present, and getting to know the mother (even though it was already after she'd passed). It's an amazing story of family and love and remember, you have a limited amount of time with them and you never know when time will run out. Don't leave things unsaid.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

This book was fantastic - a well written novel with really dynamic characters that were easy to empathize with. I read through this so fast, and was excited when one of my book clubs selected it… It made for great discussion!

You will love this book if…
…you enjoy family drama. The characters in this book all have their own clear agendas and goals, but uncovering their secrets as the plot unfolds really brings them all together.
…you enjoy books that tackle a variety of tough topics in a way that inspires discussion and action. From the cultural diaspora to parent/child relations to sexuality and more, this boom will challenge your thinking and leave you open to finding and learning more in each chapter. I loved learning more about Jamaican and Caribbean culture as I read it!
…you loved The Vanishing Half, Ask Again Yes, or Meet the Brennans.

Thank you to @netgalley and Ballentine Books for the Asvanced Readers Copy in exchange for my unbiased review.

What an incredible book! The generational unfolding of mother to siblings and how their perspectives laced together was just stunning. The use of black cake and how it grounded the family back to common ground even in the hardest times: again, simply stunning! Absolutely loved the writing, the construction and the air of mystery throughout. Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher!

The main thing I want to tell you about this book is add it to your TBR! What a fantastic story about family, choices, consequences, love, grief, and food. This multigenerational story about gender/immigration/race/family has beautiful writing and complex issues but it a book you won't want to put down. An amazing book about love, sacrifice, and family. Well done Charmaine Wilkerson!

Sibling rivalry here comes with more layers than the CAKE. Enjoyed the way she incorporates the modern with the old.

Wow. This. Book.

What a master telling of the human experience and the devastating repercussions secrets can have on families. Charmaine Wilkerson, @charmspen1 , really had me glued to every page throughout this novel. Not only was the imagery rich, but the descriptions were vivid enough to activate all my senses.

I'm only disappointed that it took me this long to read! Complex and illuminating, this novel will have you thinking about family and the choices you make with regard to all the relationships in your life. I won't even discuss the characters in depth for fear of giving too much away.

Many thanks to @NetGalley and Ballantine Books for gifting me with this incredible E-galley in exchange for an honest review.

Please see more of my reviews on my blog at www.mamasgottaread.blogspot.com or follow me on Instagram at www.instagram.com/mamasgottaread .

Matriarch Eleanor Bennett has succumbed to her disease and left some of her famous black cake in the freezer and a video recording for her children Byron and Benny.

Eleanor was a great mother, but often a little vague about her and her husband’s origins, simply maintaining that they were orphans from the West Indies. When her lawyer Mitch stays to show the siblings the video, they quickly realize that their mother’s childhood and adolescence was not at all what they expected, and that there was a reason she was so drawn to her special dessert.

Filled with so many interesting characters we, along with Byron and Benny, flash back to Eleanor née Covey’s upbringing in the Caribbean and subsequent move to Britain. We learn about the challenges she herself faced being raised mostly without a mother, and her motivations for fleeing her home. Learning more of their true heritage, Byron and Benny begin to have a better understanding of themselves and their relationships with not only their parents, but also the world around them.

It’s difficult to say much more about this book without giving away too much of the plot, but I will say it was raw and authentic. Eleanor’s video confessional was endearing and gut wrenching at times. Experiencing the new discoveries about their mother with Byron and Benny was difficult at times as they were fraught with all kinds of emotions. Black Cake is definitely worth the read, just be aware of the back and forth in Eleanor’s past and present along with all the people she introduces can be a little tricky to keep track of.

Thank you to NetGalley, Ballantine Books, and of course Charmaine Wilkerson for the advanced copy. Black Cake is out now. All opinions are my own.

Benny and Byron, estranged siblings for years, fulfill their mother’s last wishes by meeting to listen to an audio recording of their mother telling her life story, full of secrets she has not shared. It is quite a story, spanning decades and continents leaving Benny and Byron thinking they did not know their mother at all.

A decent read with well defined characters BUT I felt there was a lot of proselytizing in this book. Not necessarily a bad thing but there were too many issues often clouding the story. I would definitely read another book by Charlemaine Wilkerson, I enjoyed the writing and visualizations.

Black Cake was a great title for this book. It symbolized the link between the Caribbean, England, and California. All the characters had a connection to the cake. The book lived up to my expectations. It goes back and forth between the different times and locales very smoothly. All of the characters confront their issues in different ways. Covey became Eleanor and left the tape that explains it all.
I’ve already recommended this book to others.

Byron and Benny's mother has died, bringing them together for the first time since Benny told their family that she was bisexual and it didn't go well. When Benny didn't come back for their father's funeral, Byron hasn't been able to forgive her. Part of their mother's will is for them to listen to her story, hoping it will bring them back together, which thrusts the book back in time to tell the story of a young swimmer who has to escape her home on an island.

This book was a beautiful story with beautiful characters that you pull for but that are VERY human. It also opened a window to the world of the Caribbean and black cakes, which I did not know anything about beforehand. If you love family drama with characters you feel like you know already, this is for you.

Wow! This incredibly powerful story absolutely blew me away. Alternating between different character perspectives and different times in history, this novel packed quite the emotional punch. I loved the exploration into generational secrets, forgiveness and healing, family ties, cultural heritage and what makes a legacy last. With elements of history, romance, and mystery, this novel will have something for everyone. I would highly recommend it as a perfect book club pick- rife with possibilities for discussion and connection. Can't wait for more from this author!

Thank you so much to Random House Ballentine and Netgalley for my copy.

Note: I DNFed this book at 37%.

I found it hard to get invested in the characters, mainly because of the writing. It felt distant during both the happy and depressing scenes, and the characters seemed half-drawn, with the reader having to fill in the blanks by using the characters' descriptions, mostly stereotypes, as a basis. As a character-driven reader, this didn't sit well with me because these decisions made the story feel well-trodden and unoriginal.

However, since this is a subjective criticism, I would recommend this book to fans of Tayari Jones, Brit Bennett, and Nicole Dennis-Ben because of the similar feelings they evoke, their approach to situations that move the story forward, and the way the characters make decisions. I can see the merit in Black Cake, but this book was just not for me.

I put off reading "Black Cake" because I'm not a huge fan of historical fiction and I thought that's what this was. Wow was I wrong. I LOVED the story of the Bennetts and all the twists and turns in their family history. Don't be like me and ignore this one - it was marvelous!

Compulsively readable, this debut transports us to another time and place and back to the here and now. I was entranced with this captivating story of so much--choices, family, love, anger, and of course, Black Cake.

There are a lot of characters and points of view and, in retrospect, it seems the author wanted to talk about every issue facing us today, but besides some repetitive writing, I'm not complaining because I want to read it again already.

I was not caught up in this book from the start. As I continued to read though, I found myself more interested in continuing to read it. The older characters were well developed and you do start to feel empathy for their past. troubles. The adult children were not as well developed and needed more character buildup. I was drawn into the story to see the final connections of the characters at the end. I would recommend this book to be discussed at a book club meeting . It has a lot of different story lines that would be good for discussion

Black Cake was such a unique story - I loved the family connections, drama, and dynamics. The book was a bit long, but pacing was great and kept me interested. I thought it was a clever way to tell the story and there were enough surprises throughout that I found the book very engaging. And now I have to try black cake!!