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    The Last Rock Curling simulates real physics to give an authentic feel of curling that is fun for...

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Kristy H (1252 KP) rated Black Cake in Books

Feb 4, 2022  
Black Cake
Black Cake
Charmaine Wilkerson | 2022 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Siblings Byron and Benny are estranged, but after their mother's death, they discover she’s left them a black cake, a beloved food from their childhood and history, and a voice recording that reveals many surprises about her past. Their mother Eleanor's story is heartbreaking and shocking, but will it bring Byron and Benny together to share the cake "when the time is right," as their mother desired?

This is a really interesting and different book. It’s a sweeping tale that spans from the 1960s to the present and touches on racism, homophobia, immigration, assault, the meaning of family, and so much more. If that sounds like a lot, it is, and sometimes it feels like too much. The story meanders at times--it's a lot to go from the 1960s to the near present, and the story is told through many narrators and short chapters. It's sometimes confusing to keep track of. At times, the musings and whining of present-day Byron and Benny are frustrating because you just want to get back to Eleanor and the past.

And that is where BLACK CAKE shines. Because while this is a debut novel and it shows at times, the story really is engrossing, especially when Eleanor gets into her origin story and we learn about the Caribbean and how she became who she is. There's almost a mystery in there, and it's fascinating. We are taken back to the islands, meeting a young determined swimmer and her best friend. I love how Wilkerson weaves everything together into a touching and poignant tale that delves deep into this family's past. I was mesmerized and needed to know everything that happened. There are a lot of characters and a few false starts, but this story winds around to make sense, and it was a really beautiful and fascinating.

I received a copy of this book from Random House / Ballantine and Netgalley in return for an unbiased review.
  
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David McK (3663 KP) rated The Honour of Rome (Cato and Macro #20) in Books

Apr 24, 2022  
The Honour of Rome (Cato and Macro #20)
The Honour of Rome (Cato and Macro #20)
Simon Scarrow | 2022 | Fiction & Poetry
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Entry #20 in Simon Scarrow's Macro and Cato series, which means there's been approximately one entry per year.

I can't believe it's been going that long (ummm ... in a good way).

Anyway, we're now back at the original setting of the series - back in Brittania; back after Cato and Macro's various adventures across the Roman Empire.

Things have changes since then, however - Macro is now retired from the legions, whereas Cato (originally Macro's optio) now outranks him and now has a family of his own to look after.

The previous entry in the series (The Emperor's Exile is the one in which Macro retired, leaving - with his new wife Petronella - to travel back to Brittania to reconnect with his own mother and to look after his share of an inn that she has opened in Londinium. As a result, he was missing for large chunks of the narrative: circa three quarters or so of the story, let us say.
Meanwhile, Cato was charged with accompanying Emperor Nero's mistress Claudia Acte into exile on Sardinia, with the bulk of the novel then following Cato, the burgeoning romance between him and Claudia and events on that island.

This novel mirrors that approach, with the larger bulk of this following Macro and his adventures in Londinium and in the veterans colony of Camulodunum (which I've just found out is Colchester, and the first Roman Capital of the province) before the two principal characters finally reunite circa - again - three quarters of the way into the story.

There's also the groundwork laid here for, to paraphrase the closing words of the novel, the brewing storm, with the inclusion of characters from earlier novels (round about When the Eagle Hunts) who belong to the Iceni tribe, and with how they are being treated by their new Roman overlords. Anybody with a passing knowledge of UK history will know who I mean ...