black author – Dr JoAnn LoSavio

You Make It Feel Like Christmas: A Novel by Toni Shiloh

I’m not a reader of romances. It’s not that I completely eschew a romantic twist in the tale; it’s fine if it’s interconnected to the tale, forwards the motives of the characters, adds some tension to he dialogue. But generally, I don’t seek out romance novels, the kind in which love or lust are the primary objectives of the story.

So I took a chance on You Make It Feel Like Christmas. It’s — as the title makes obvious — a Christmas romance, to boot. These things usually follow a formula (as I understand it), so I expected something similar to what I’ve watched on Netflix around Christmastime; y’know, the Reese Witherspoon-look alike kind of rom-com movies that are all about feeling good after feeling bad about family, love, marriage, some kind of expectation or the failure to deliver it. You know the type.

I was not disappointed. Readers of contemporary holiday romance will likely find You Make It Feel Like Christmas a perfect reflection of the genre. They will walk away from reading it with a sense of wholesomeness, like things are the way they should be. It’s a feel-good read that delivers.

Starr Lewis and family friend, Waylon Emmerson are the fated lovers, but there is also Starr’s whole immediate family, a cast of characters who are equal parts infuriating and endearing. This is family goodness, right here.

Because of the wholesomeness of this romance, readers should not expect high octane, reality-tv-show drama (though there are moments when a particular sister might drive the reader to throw something); but, there is tension and the romance does not flow in a smooth linear fashion from point A to point B. Moreover, there are not only tensions between the lovers, but also within the Lewis family as its members navigate the stress of the holiday and other momentous events.

What is smooth and linear is Shiloh’s prose. The story is delivered in a straightforward manner, though with finesse and her own style, making the novel a pleasant read. It’s perfect for de-stressing during the holiday season, as the reader might need to navigate their own family dramas.

In the Upper Country: A Novel
by Kai Thomas

I was very excited to read this, and it did not disappoint. In The Upper Country offers readers a new perspective, one of many histories, of the Underground Railroad, and the people who traversed it, were borne out of it. This is a story about ancestry and descending, the diverse and convergent ways in which histories flow, often beyond our control and understanding.

Several stories, seemingly disparate, come together here to bring a fleshiness to a spectral kind of history.

The story is set in Dunmore, a town in Canada were black people who have escaped slavery can be free — and yet, of course, not, living as they are within a white world. An event shakes the town, the criminal refuses to be cowed and the result is a tense struggle between generations to grapple with North American chattel slavery and the concept of freedom. The result is a portrayal of the tragically disjointed and yet deeply connected lives of black slaves and free blacks. Lensinda was born free. But she must still live with the past. The past must learn how to reconcile itself.

This is the kind of story that must be read and re-read, the reader accepting that with each re-reading a different understanding of the characters and their ideas of freedom and bondage will become visible.