The Next Book On My List

Allegedly by Tiffany Jackson                 Mary has spent years in baby jail and now is staying in a group home for murdering baby Alyssa. Allegedly. She was nine the night Alyssa died. When the cops arrived at the home she was covered in mud, the baby had bruises all over here face and body. It’s been years and Mary hasn’t stopped thinking about Alyssa. She also never admitted to the crime. Her mom agreed to the plea deal of manslaughter on behalf of Mary. But now Mary has a different story to tell. She didn’t kill Alyssa but she knows who did. And if it means she’ll be able to keep the baby growing in her stomach, she is willing to tell everyone the truth.                 I regret that I started reading this book while visiting family. If I had been at home I would have finished this book in a day or two. It’s the kind of story that sucks you in right away but has a super dark tone and you spend the majority of the time trying to figure out what the truth it. I didn’t

Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao                 Poornima was the oldest daughter. Her mother had passed years ago and she was the one who cared for not only her father but her brothers and sister. Savitha’s father was an alcoholic and her mother did the laundry for other people in their village. The two became friends when Savitha came to work for Poornima’s father. Both were poor and struggling but their friendship was filled with a love and trust that neither had known and both depended on. It wasn’t long before Poornima’s arranged marriage that Savitha fled from their village, a victim who was going to be forced into an even worse situation. But the two would always yearn for each other and the friendship they had, with paths crossing until they could find each other again.                 There are some books that I can’t stop reading because the plot is beautifully done. This is not one of those books. This is a book that I kept reading because the writing is bea

The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss I heard about this book a few years ago. I have never read anything by Alexander Dumas but I feel like I’ve always known about his books. The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers had all been made into movies that I’ve browsed through or knew of. Not to mention The Man in the Iron Mask featuring those same musketeers and Leonardo DiCaprio, a movie that I have watched countless times over. I knew these characters for the most part but I had no idea what the inspiration might have been for them. Then I came across this book which states that Alexander Dumas’s dad, a Black man, was the novelist inspiration for much of his work and I became very intrigued. I had assumed that Dumas was white. Mostly because all of the depictions of his characters were white and because people usually make it a point to point out when an author is Black. I picked this book up with the int