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The Blackbirds by Eric Jerome Dickey
Published by Dutton on 4/19/2016
Pages: 528 pages
They call themselves the Blackbirds. Kwanzaa Browne, Indigo Abdulrahaman, Destiny Jones, and Ericka Stockwell are four best friends who are closer than sisters, and will go to the ends of the earth for one another. Yet even their deep bond can’t heal all wounds from their individual pasts, as the collegiate and post-collegiate women struggle with their own demons, drama, and desires.
Trying to forget her cheating ex-fiancé, Kwanzaa becomes entangled with a wicked one-night stand—a man who turns out to be one in five million. Indigo is in an endless on-again, off-again relationship with her footballer boyfriend, and in her time between dysfunctional relationships she purses other naughty desires. Destiny, readjusting to normal life, struggles to control her own anger after avenging a deep wrong landed her in juvi, while at the same time trying to have her first real relationship—one she has initiated using an alias to hide her past from her lover. Divorced Ericka is in remission from cancer and trying to deal with two decades of animosity with her radical mother, while keeping the desperate crush she has always had on Destiny’s father a secret... a passion with an older man that just may be reciprocated.
As the women try to overcome— or give into— their impulses, they find not only themselves tested, but the one thing they always considered unbreakable: their friendship.
Buy Link: http://amzn.to/1XETzPd
I have read everything EJD as we the reader call him, and I must say this was the most poignant work of his, for me.
The book opens with Indigo, Destiny, Ericka and Kwanzaa four Afrocentric millennials who also live in the same building, about to jump out of a plane to celebrate Indigo’s birthday. One of the things we learn about these four women as we read is that they love life and live for today. If that is all you get out of this story, then EJD did what he set out to do and more because this is a story about much more. Each woman is grappling with some issue be it a relationship, mother/daughter drama, family secrets that could tear the family apart when it comes out and more. EJD does an excellent job of painting the picture and showing the conflict.
Indigo Abdulrahaman is tall, beautiful and while she was born in the US, she claims her Nigerian roots. She also has two suitors Olamilekan Babangida and Idowu Yaba The Laker. Oh, what to do what to do and they aren’t making it easy for her to decide.
Destiny Jones has a secret from her youth she tries to hide and stays as low-key as possible even “hiding” by using another name to ensure her privacy. When she tells Hakeem Mitchell her current beau who she is, will he run and will he stay?
Ericka Stockwell a divorcée and cancer survivor in remission over a year also has mother/daughter issues that prevent them from having a healthy relationship.
Kwanzaa Browne is on the outs with her ex-fiancé, Marcus Jesus Delgado-Munoz Brixton also an Attorney but when she spots him at the mall, with another woman, let us just say what happens next is epic and will have you shaking your head.
I recommend this book for anyone who likes stories of friendship, life struggles, triumph sprinkled with a bit of sexual situations and drama, as each character finds her strength to become who they are because after reading this I felt that even if scars are left, pain does not stop life from continuing.
Read this book!
Reviewed by Linda C
