Wow - Good Dirt was unputdownable for me. I loved Black Cake, and wasn't expecting this follow-up to live up to the debut. But I think Good Dirt was even better.

The book follows two main arcs leading in opposite directions from a tragedy. Ebby Freeman is a young girl when she witnesses a terrible incident in her home, leaving her beloved brother dead and her trying to heal from the trauma in the public eye. In the course of the crime, a historic family heirloom - a clay jar made by an enslaved potter which has made its way to New England and become a powerful symbol in their family - is shattered. We follow the story of the jar through the hands of its creator and the family that treasured it.

Both narratives are broad and touch on so many more people and perspectives than I could begin to recount. However, it never lost me or dragged - just kept me following these lines forward and backward through history. I simply loved it.

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson was a tough novel to follow up on, so I was nervous for her. But, damn, did she deliver. I think I liked Good Dirt, which follows generations of a Black family surrounding a family heirloom, even more than Black Cake, which is really saying something!

I loved Black Cake and was thrilled to see this new book by Charmaine Wilkerson. I enjoyed this one so much - such a powerful intergenerational story about love, family, and grief.

At a young age; Ebby Freeman tragically watched a break-in go bad, killing her older brother Baz and destroying an important family heirloom, a clay jar, in the process. As one of the few Black families in this affluent New England neighborhood, their family became a spectacle for gossip and voyeurism. Nearly two decades later, their family is once more thrust into the spotlight after Ebby is left standing alone at the altar with no explanation. Ebby decides to flee to France to hide from it all, but her past follows her there. She begins to connect the generations of stories and people in her family through the history of the jar - hoping to process her grief.

This book does such a beautiful job weaving together past and present narratives. Heartbreaking and emotional, the prose was thoughtfully crafted and the characters felt lived in. I loved how it touched on racism, loss, and survival in such an engaging way. Definitely at this to your TBR list for 2025 - you won’t be disappointed!

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Ballantine for the ARC!

I was so looking forward to Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson since I had loved her debut novel Black Cake. However, I was disappointed in. Although the story had some very strong elements, the constant switching of timelines and multiple storylines to follow really threw me for a loop. I had to refer back to previous chapters more than a few times to make sure I followed the action. I appreciated Ebby's strength after a difficult childhood event that changed her life but found her to be abrasive. I so wanted to love this book. Thank you to the author publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed Black Cake so was very excited to read Charmaine Wilkerson’s new book. It did not disappoint. Again the author expertly weaves narratives together. The characters are complex and well developed. I love reading a book that exposes me to something I didn’t know and this book did with the pottery made by African Americans. Even though there were many very sad storylines hope always came through.
Thank you NetGalley.

This is my book of 2025! I loved this book.

Ebby suffered a great tragedy as a child with the loss of her brother and a family heirloom.

Despite everything, Abby has become sucessful in both her career and love until she is literally left at the aisle.

The fallout from the failed wedding is self-reflection, retaining and rebuilding family history.

This book will be published January 2025 and I'm sure will be on the best seller list by February.

Finished this one this last night and absolutely loved it!

This second novel by Charmaine Wilkerson follows the story of a long family line and the hardships they faced establishing roots and freedom. The jumping timelines piece back the entire story beautifully at the end.

A little bit murder mystery, a little bit historical fiction, and a little bit of romance made for a gripping story that had me turning the pages. 368 pages makes it a bit long but the short chapters kept it moving.

Definitely a 5⭐️ for me! Available for purchase on Jan 28, 2025!!

Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for an advance reader copy!

I loved this author's first book and was very excited to read her next. This was a beautiful multigenerational story with so much rich history. I did have difficulty with several points of view but did very much enjoy the read.
Thank you netgalley for an advanced copy. My opinions are my own.

In the historical novel genre, Good Dirt has so much more than that to pick apart. Yes, it is a historical novel with multiple timelines, but it is also a mystery, a tragedy, a love story, a family story. At its center is Ebby (Ebony) Freeman, the survivor of a traumatic attempted robbery that killed her adored brother, Baz. It seems that the target of the attempted robbery was a large jug several centuries old, made by a member of the Feeman's ancestral family.

It begins on the day of Ebby's wedding and concludes at a museum opening where the jar, called Old Mo, is displayed. In between, there are episodes in Africa, in a slave compound, on a sailing ship and a cottage in France. Many characters, main and minor, narrate their own chapters.

The cruelty and horror of slavery is painfully depicted. So are the post-traumatic wounds of a young child's terror and loss. Ebby's development and her family relationships are deeply explored. Not so much those of the minor characters. This is a fine novel, and thought-provoking. I feel, somehow, that it would have been a lot better if the minor narrator chapters had been omitted and if the dénouement hinted at throughout had not been delayed quite so long.

Thank you to Ballantine Books and Net Galley for an ARC copy to read and revieew.
'

This book had me captivated by the first few pages. Wilkerson opens her story in the year 2000. We've just witnessed a home invasion in the New England coastal enclave where the Freeman family resides. Notably, they are the only African American family in this affluent, blue collar community.

We meet 10 year old Ebby (Ebony), our main character, as she is in shock over witnessing the shooting death of her beloved brother Baz (Basil, 15 at the time). Oddly, nothing was taken during the home invasion, but a pottery jar - the one artifact that still tied the Freeman family to slavery and their six generational voyage - was left behind broken.

The next time we see Ebby she is vacationing in a small village in France. She is now a 29 year old woman who has fled her hometown after being jilted at the alter by her seemingly nice, Caucasian, photographer fiancé.

Throughout the rest of the book, we are treated to multiple POVs and settings (dating back six generations). The family's journey to where they presently are and to the importance of the ancestral pottery jar as it ties their family to their roots, as well as their arrival in the US, and to their history in slavery, are all revealed.

The book is figuratively (and literally) about picking up the pieces and being able to cope and move on after a tragedy affecting your family has rocked it to its core.

I loved all of the multi-generational POV's and the significance of the book's title, which is derived from the premise that the dirt is "good" for the slavery potters if it has enough clay in its composition for consistency while spinning and molding.

This delightful family saga hits shelves Jan. 28, 2025. If you're a fan of family drama interwoven with historical fiction, put this one on your list. Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for this advance ARC.

Congratulations to the author on another successful novel. I must say although the story was very interesting, it often got lost in the characters.

It appeared that every character had a full storyline that was included in the book. It became character overload. In my pinion, all of these side stories took away from the main point of the book.

I recommend this book because overall it’s a story. I’m interested in listening to the book as an audiobook, preferably with multiple characters..

Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the opportunity to read this ARC.

I absolutely loved Black Cake so I had high expectations for Good DIrt. And oh my god, high expectations be damned because this well exceeded them. I was gripped from the beginning despite the many POVs. That can be distracting for me in a book, but it absolutely worked for this book. I loved every single character and learning about their backstory and how it all connects via this jar.

Illuminating, captivating and brilliant. This book tugged at my heartstrings and kept me reading way past my bedtime.

Alternating between past and present, this is the story of a wealthy African-American family with deep roots to their family legacy and ancestral background. When they suffer a great tragedy, we see how each member of their family, friends and the entire community come to terms with what happened, especially Ebby, their only surviving child.

The story of what happened to this family, dating back decades, is heartbreaking. It was an emotional journey that I’m grateful to have had a peek into. Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the ARC of this 5-star book.

Charmaine Wilkerson is the author of the unforgettable Black Cake. In Good Dirt, Wilkerson's takes unique ability to blend genres and bring us a historical novel, a romance novel and a novel of literature and a bit of magical realism.

In Good Dirt, we meet the indomitable Ebby Freeman. A wealthy young African-American who is still grieving the death of her brother years ago. Left literally (actually) at the altar, Ebby is reeling from the disappointment and embarrassment and has made her way to France to regroup. As luck would have it, she ends up running into the very people she prefer to never see again.

Wilkerson weaves in the story of a very precious jar -a jar that the Freeman family considers precious and an artifact of the family's survival of slavery. The story of the jar and the history of the Freemans is told in alternating chapters and is quite gripping. As the story draws to a close it becomes clear that the jar and the event that framed Ebby's whole life are very much connected.

The themes of historical trauma, generational inheritance, and grief are strong in this beautiful book and Wilkerson does an excellent job of charming us all again!
#randomhouse #gooddirt #charmainewilderson

I downloaded Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson and I completely devoured it in two days. I love this story so much. Black Cake was the book that got me out of my reading slump last year. For some reason this story was so visual for me, I don't typically see full movies in my head but I did with this book. Ebby felt so real to me—the story, the stakes kept me intoxicated and interested from start to finish.

I absolutely loved this book and felt that I came away from it with more than just entertainment. I found myself thinking about the issues it raises long after I had finished reading. It also led me down a rabbit hole of broader research into pottery and history. The issues pf race and family relations are central to the plot and it is impossible to walk away from this book without pondering the state of race relations over time. But it is not a book which lectures or which is in any way performative in its analysis. This is a deep and thoughtful piece which covers important issues just as it entertains,

“Good Dirt,” Charmaine Wilkerson’s second novel, is a sweeping story about the history of a prominent New England African American family whose lives are forever changed when Baz Freeman, son of Soh and Ed Freeman and older brother to Ebby Freeman, is murdered in a home invasion robbery during which an heirloom jar produced by an ancestor over a century ago is destroyed. The story alternates in time from Baz and Ebby’s childhood, the events following his death, Ebby’s life as an adult dealing with her childhood trauma, as well as the family history beginning with an ancestor’s capture into slavery in the early 1800s, to their lives as slaves and eventual freedom, and migration to New England.

The book opens with Ebby in her late twenties being left at the alter by her white boyfriend, who comes from a wealthy, famous banking family. The media attention engendered by her public humiliation brings back the pain of the widespread press coverage that occurred after the murder of her brother, Baz, which continued throughout her life, her name forever linked with the family tragedy. Ebby deals with the newest trauma by fleeing to a small village in France where she becomes a caretaker for the property of a business associate turned friend. Here she tries to deal with both her past and present traumas, while trying to stay out of the limelight.

The novel does a great job of shedding light on the art of pottery produced by slave labor in the south, the suffering the slaves endured and their fight for freedom and safety. It’s also the history of one family’s rise to prominence and an old earthenware jug that defined and shaped that history. But mostly its about how each individual member of a family was impacted by the violent death of a family member, and how they each learned to cope with that loss.

Although at times the lengthy stretches of “telling” consisting of long narrations recounting different aspects of the family’s history could become somewhat tedious, the author’s prose style, the fascinating characters, and the compelling storyline compensated for this minor defect. This book is a worthy successor to her critically acclaimed debut novel, Black Cake.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for providing me an ARC of the novel in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. It kept me engaged and it only took a few days to read. I think this is going to be a good book club option for several clubs. I plan recommending to my book friends and I look forward to reading more by this author.

A gorgeous, sweeping follow-up to BLACK CAKE! If anything, I might actually like this one better? Wilkerson has such a gift with characters, and delivers another stunning family epic that I couldn't put down. Five stars!

This book was so beautiful and wonderful, and a read I will recommend for ages. I couldn’t imagine this book topping Black Cake (by this author), but for me it did!!! I completely fell in love with Black Cake by this author when I read it last year, and this book has been no different!! Just a few chapters in, I can already feel love between the FMC and her family though they’ve gone through such great losses from the start of the book!!!

⭐️GOOD DIRT, out JAN 2025⭐️

Thank you to the publisher for the review copy of this book!