THE INSTANT NO. 2 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
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Everyone wants to discover what they're made of . . .
**Featured on Barack Obama's Summer Reading List**
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'A story as meaningful as it is delicious' TAYLOR JENKINS REID
'A roiling soup of family secrets, big lies [and] great loves' NEW YORK TIMES
'Special, beautifully written. Rich and intoxicating'GOOD HOUSEKEEPING
'Brilliant writing. A stunning book' PRIMA, 'BOOK OF THE MONTH'
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Eleanor Bennett won't let her secrets die with her.
When Eleanor's estranged children Benny and Byron reunite for her funeral, they receive an unexpected inheritance. First, a traditional Caribbean black cake, to remind them of their roots. Second, the story of a decades-old murder that shatters everything they thought they knew about their mother.
But as Benny and Byron unravel their family's troubled past, will the truth push them further apart?
Or will it reunite them and fulfil Eleanor's final wish?
________
'An extremely assured debut which pulls in threads and echoes from across the Caribbean diaspora to deliver a rich, complex and really satisfying novel' ALISON FINCH, BBC Radio 4
'I was instantly taken in by this multi-generational tale of identity, family, and the lifelong push and pull of home.' MARY BETH KEANE, author of Ask Again, Yes
'Heartfelt . . . explores the meaning of home and the family that define it' SUNDAY EXPRESS
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Exquisite and expansive, Black Cake took ahold of me from the first page and didn't let go. This is a novel about the formation and reformation of a family, and the many people, places, and events that can shape our inheritances without our knowing. A gripping, poignant debut from an important, new voice." - Naima Coster
"I was instantly taken in by this multigenerational tale of identity, family, and the lifelong push and pull of home. This novel has a tremendous heart at its center, and I felt its beat on every page. What an extraordinary debut." - Mary Beth Keane
"So beautifully written I'm struggling to believe it's a debut . . . The cake is the glue that holds all the layers together and the scenes are so well drawn I could almost taste the cake, feel the warm sea on my skin." - Nikki May
"Black Cake is a beautiful, deeply resonant story of children trying to understand the mother they have lost. Charmaine Wilkerson transports you across the decades and the globe accompanied by complex, wonderfully drawn characters. She has managed to tell a story that is as meaningful as it is delicious. At turns delightfully juicy and then stunningly wise, Black Cake is a winner." - Taylor Jenkins Reid
"With fantasy-like sensual detail, Wilkerson slips through time and place to explore the emotional weight of family traditions passed down through generations to heirs challenged to find their own emotional truths." - Lucy Sanna
"Black Cake has all the ingredients of the tastiest stories: secrets, romance, danger, and a cast of characters so real you want to scream at them one moment and hug them the next." - Dawnie Walton
"I was instantly taken in by this multigenerational tale of identity, family, and the lifelong push and pull of home. This novel has a tremendous heart at its center, and I felt its beat on every page. What an extraordinary debut." - Mary Beth Keane
"So beautifully written I'm struggling to believe it's a debut . . . The cake is the glue that holds all the layers together and the scenes are so well drawn I could almost taste the cake, feel the warm sea on my skin." - Nikki May
"Black Cake is a beautiful, deeply resonant story of children trying to understand the mother they have lost. Charmaine Wilkerson transports you across the decades and the globe accompanied by complex, wonderfully drawn characters. She has managed to tell a story that is as meaningful as it is delicious. At turns delightfully juicy and then stunningly wise, Black Cake is a winner." - Taylor Jenkins Reid
"With fantasy-like sensual detail, Wilkerson slips through time and place to explore the emotional weight of family traditions passed down through generations to heirs challenged to find their own emotional truths." - Lucy Sanna
"Black Cake has all the ingredients of the tastiest stories: secrets, romance, danger, and a cast of characters so real you want to scream at them one moment and hug them the next." - Dawnie Walton
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