Charmaine Wilkerson

"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.… (more)

Digital audiobook performed by Lynnette R Freeman & Simone McIntyre.

After their mother dies, Byron and Benny receive a puzzling inheritance; in addition to a traditional Caribbean black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, their mother leaves behind a voice recording, in which she shares her history and the mystery of a long-lost child. Everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage is now challenged. They must learn their mother’s story, uncover her secrets, and reconnect their family bonds.

I really liked this debut work. It was engaging and interesting. The dual timeline (which I’ve come to dislike) was done well and helped, not only to tell the story but to give a sense of how unsettling and unmoored B & B felt as they struggled to understand the new information their mother’s final instructions forced them to confront. In addition to moving from the past to the present, the action takes us from the Caribbean to the UK to California. And always, the connection is Black Cake.

I listened to the audiobook which is very well done, using two talented voice artists: Lynnette R Freeman and Simone McIntyre.… (more)

With her second novel, Good Dirt, Charmaine Wilkerson solidifies her position as one of the best current writers of family sagas. When Ebony “Ebby” Freeman gets left at the altar, she is forced to confront the demons that haunt her and her family. Wilkerson intersperses the present-day timeline with short chapters about Ebby’s ancestors from their capture in Africa to their successful business in New England to the tragedy that happened when Ebby was a child. I would have liked more Ebby and less history, but I still found Good Dirt an engaging and enjoyable novel. Readers of historical fiction, family sagas, and contemporary novels should not miss Wilkerson’s latest.… (more)