Black Cake, Charmaine Wilkerson

A superbly written book.

Black Cake is the center of this book that revolves around Covey, a young girl turned runaway bride from a Caribbean island. She is forced to marry ‘Little Man,’ a gangaster-type after her father runs up debt with no other way to pay. Through a twist of circumstances, Little Man dies at the reception and Covey flees and ends up in the UK under a new last name. Another tragedy strikes when Covey and her friend, Ellie are in a train crash and Covey again, takes on a new identity.

The story switches from Covey’s backstory to Covey’s current life which includes her children. Upon Covey’s death, her children will learn their entire life has been built on lies - but are all lies bad?

Because the writing was excellent it helped me work through the weeds when the narrative got a little drawn out, causing the pacing to slow a bit. That being said, there wasn’t a time when I wished I weren’t reading this book with its beautifully, descriptive prose.

I will look for another one of Charmaine Wilkerson’s works in time as this was her extremely successful debut.