Black Cake

September 6, 2025 /

Black Cake ~ Charmaine Wilkerson

Benny and Byron Bennett are estranged siblings, brought together by the death of their beloved mother, Eleanor. Eleanor, with help from her lawyer, has recorded a message for them, and she wants them to hear it together.

This is the beginning of Black Cake, and from there we are taken back and forth in time, to learn the deep secrets that Eleanor has kept from her children. Listening to her recording, Benny and Byron discover that while they knew the essence of their mother, they did not know the details of how she became to be the woman they admired and loved. The trials she endured, the sacrifices that she made and kept only to herself.

Covey is the mixed race child of parents from an unnamed Caribbean island. Her father is Chinese, her mother Black. Her mother left when she was young, vowing to come back for her, but she never does. So Covey is raised by her usually drunk father, who has a gambling addiction that has gotten them into trouble. When this trouble is getting too real, Covey embraces an opportunity to save herself, and disappears.

I really enjoyed this book! I don’t know that I liked it as much as Wilkerson’s most recent novel, Good Dirt, but I found myself compelled by the characters and wanting things to work out for all most of them. Highly recommended.

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