Book reviews are gifts to authors and to readers. A definite win-win.
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Review – His Only Wife by Peace Medie
Twenty-one-year old Afi finds herself in the middle of another family’s drama when she agrees to marry the son of a wealthy woman who provided support to Afi and her mother after Afi’s father died. She enters the marriage willingly, despite never having met her intended before, and despite knowing that her husband-to-be is in another relationship and has a…
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Get it on the record
I write fiction and teach fiction and in my teaching I recommend planning novels, especially for first-time novelist. However, a lot of people ask me about memoir-writing, and the number one question I get? How do I start? The answer: Change your mindset and your tools!
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Making a Change
I have been inspired a lot by quotes recently. This one is the latest. This quote reminds me to challenge myself often to look at my motives for doing things and to make sure they continue to fit with my view on life. When it comes to my writing, I struggle with one basic “I’ve always done it that way.”…
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Writers’ Block
The majority of writers experience writers’ block at some point. That moment/ day/ week/ year where you sit in front of a blank page and words fail you. I used to experience writers’ block much more often than I do now.One of the worst experiences was when I was writing the novel Fury on Soufrière Hills. I had written my three…
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Can you make inspiration happen?
I recently came across the saying – “Creativity is intelligence having fun,” which is often incorrectly attributed to Einstein (the correct attribution is unknown). The phrase resonated with me, although I would rephrase it to “Creativity is hard work having fun.”
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YA Review-Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta
I have to thank Ann Marie Harvey, Librarian at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, for bringing this book to the top of my reading list on which it has been languishing since it was first published last year. Ann Marie invited me to a virtual book club meeting which I would not have been able to attend if it had been held…
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Review-The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey
It’s 2015 and we meet David Baptiste, his “dreads…grey and his body wizened to twigs of hard black coral.” He is a fisherman on St Constance, a tiny Caribbean village on the island of Black Conch, who had been the center of “the events of 1976” when a mermaid came to shore on the island and challenged the hearts and…
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Review-Book of the Little Axe by Lauren Francis-Sharma
When I heard the premise of this book, I was intrigued and skeptical. A woman of African descent from Trinidad ends up in what is now known as Big Horn, Montana in 1830? Really? The likelihood and the logistics baffled me. Well, Francis-Sharma handles this masterfully with confidence backed up by compelling characters, complicated relationships, and what must have been…
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Review-A Girl is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
A Girl is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is essentially a coming-of-age story set in Uganda in the 1970s. The story begins with Kirabo Nnamiiro, a smart, feisty, twelve-year-old girl who consults a blind elderly neighbor, Nsuuta-labeled by the village as a witch-, to help search for her mother and also to help her to deal with…