Good Dirt
We All Live Here

Black Cake

We can’t choose what we inherit. But can we choose who we become?

In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.

Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor’s true history, and fulfill her final request to “share the black cake when the time is right”? Will their mother’s revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever?

Charmaine Wilkerson’s debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch.

More Adult, Non-Juvenile Books

  • From the risky backstreets of sixteenth-century Paris to the unpredictable suburbs of mid-twentieth century New York, the stakes couldn’t be higher when, 400 years apart, Milly, Lysbette, and Charlotte each face a reality where the spread of ideas are feared and every effort is made to suppress them.

  • The devastatingly self-aware, laugh-out-loud daily chronicle of Bridget’s permanent, doomed quest for self-improvement.

  • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • Twelve short stories that mark a turning point in the work of “one of the true American masters" (The New York Review of Books).

  • Prima ballerina Natalia Leonova returns to St. Petersburg after a life-altering accident, confronting the ghosts of her past and the complex relationships that shaped her career. As she grapples with the allure of the stage and the pain of her memories, she must choose between the world of Russian dance that nearly destroyed her and the possibility of redemption through love and artistry.

    Read More about "City of Night Birds"...