Tag: short story

The Stella Series: Meet the Family

As mentioned, I am reviving the Stella series with a fourth book! For those who have not read the first three books, I’ll share excerpts, nuggets, and tidbits as we prepare for the fourth installment. Today, we are refamiliarizing ourselves with some of the family. Enjoy!

Stella May

Born in 1845, Stella is the daughter of a Black woman named Deborah on Paul Saddler’s Plantation in Shreveport, Louisiana. From a young age, she can remember running through cotton fields and being loved by her family. To young Stella, life is simple and fun. She eats sweet cakes, plays with her friend Carla, and helps the grownups by carrying buckets of water to the field. Stella discovers she is a slave for the first time after Deborah’s unexplained death. Now, she learns the hard way the difference between slavery and freedom.

Solomon Curtis May

Solomon has no speaking roles, but his existence is essential for the family timeline. Solomon Curtis May is Stella’s only son, born in the fall of 1870 after she was sexually assaulted by the husband of her mistress. Solomon falls in love with a white woman and marries her after inheriting land outside Chicago. They have four girls: Deborah, named for his grandmother, Judith, Rebecca, and Sara.

Judith May

Solomon’s daughter Judith married a Black man and gave birth to a baby girl she named Stella after her grandmother. However, after enduring much teasing and discrimination for her mixed features, Judith’s daughter copes with this trauma by denying part of her ancestry. She changes her name from Stella to Sidney McNair and passes for white. After marrying a white man and having his children, Sidney lives her life on the other side of the color line.

Sidney McNair

Her aunt Sara influenced Sidney to pass for white and learn to enjoy her privileges. Sidney marries a wealthy white man named Clarence McNair, and they have four children: Edward, Karen, Joseph, and Glenda, whom they raise as white.

However, when she finally reveals the truth to her adult children in 1979, the shock of their real identity is a betrayal that stretches across generations.

Karen and Noah

Sidney’s daughter Karen McNair falls in love with a young Black man named Noah Daniels. He is a leading member of the Black Panther Party and thinks he’s dating a white girl. At this time, Karen also does not know that she is mixed race, although she has many more African American features than her siblings. The couple endures many trials because of their perceived interracial union. Together, they have a son, Noah Jr, who has a much more significant role as an adult in book four.

Edward McNair

Of all Sidney’s children, her sons are the most conflicted by their mother’s betrayal. Carrying many characteristics of his father, Clarence, Edward has not only lived his life as a white man but has also enjoyed the privileges of doing so and cannot come to grips with his new reality. In brief, Edward does not want to be Black, and his daughter, Cynthia, does not yet know about her true identity because of her father’s secrets.

However, although he appears to reject his heritage, something in Edward’s subconscious won’t allow him to completely forget it. We see this when he names his youngest son after his great-grandfather, Solomon.

Joseph McNair

Joseph is also conflicted about his mother’s decisions, but goes in another direction. Still under the illusion that he is just a white boy, he nevertheless feels sympathy for the plight of Blacks and fights for their freedom with his friends during the 1960s.

Unlike Edward, Joseph wishes he were Black. He grew up to marry a Black woman named Fae, and together, they have two children, a boy named Michael and a girl named Tanya.

Introducing Tanya and Michael…

Born in the early 90s, Tanya and Michael are the children of Joseph and Fae and are young adults in the early 2000s. They face the challenge of defining themselves in a society shaped by their father’s choices and haunted by the truths Stella once fought to conceal.

In book three, they are small children, but in book four, they are young adults. In his part, we weave together the struggles of a new generation to find their voice, identity, and place in a world still wrestling with its past. The echoes of Stella’s decisions resound, reminding us that even as times change, the threads of heritage and truth remain unbroken.

Get Started on The Stella Trilogy!

Book Four: Joseph’s Children

(Working Title)

(WIP/Coming Soon)

Stay tuned for a sneak peek at chapter one of book four!

The Stella Series Continues

I published the first book in the Stella Trilogy in 2015 and revised it in 2020. I have been working on a part four recently, and I am excited to continue this family’s story.

If you have not read the series, I highly recommend it in preparation for the next part. (If you read these books from 2015 to 2016, you are advised to read the revised editions with the alternate ending!)

Like the others, it will be a historical fiction novella or short novel.

When Cynthia McNair’s grandmother overhears her and her boyfriend joking about Blacks in a derogatory way, she has a story. Born in 1845, Stella Mae was an enslaved woman on the Saddler Plantation in Shreveport, Louisiana. Forced to stay on the plantation after Emancipation, she endures much abuse and revelation. She eventually gives birth to an only son, whom she names Solomon Curtis Mae. Stella’s story takes place in book one, Between Slavery and Freedom.

Solomon was given land by the same enslaver who freed him and Stella. As a man, Solomon married a white woman, and they had four girls: Deborah, Rebecca, Judith, and Sara.

Solomon’s daughter Judith gave birth to a baby girl named after her grandmother because they looked so much alike. However, this Stella did not take pride in who she was and lived her life as a white woman and raised her children as white. We watch her struggle from delusion to acceptance during the Jim Crow era as she navigates being married to a racist white man who doesn’t even know his wife is Black. Stella has even changed her name to Sidney McNair. Her story takes place in the second book, Beyond the Colored Line.

Sidney McNair, formerly Stella, gave birth to four children: Edward, Karen, Jospeh, and Glenda. Edward is Cynthia’s father.

Because she raised them as white, Sidney’s children did not know about their African ancestry until 1979. The person most conflicted about this was Joseph, who felt sympathy for the plight of Blacks and fought for their freedom with his friends during the 1960s. His story takes place in the third book, The Road to Freedom. In book three, we learn that Joseph married a Black woman named Fae, and they had two children, Tanya and Micheal.

Joseph’s Children: Book Four in the Stella Series (WIP)

Book Four unfolds in 2008. Tanya is now eighteen, her confidence growing as she steps into adulthood with fire in her heart and ambition in her eyes. Her sixteen-year-old younger brother Michael wrestles with the same questions of identity and purpose that once drove their father to leave home in search of answers nearly half a century earlier.

Against the backdrop of Barack Obama’s historic presidency, the heartbreak of Trayvon Martin’s murder, and the rise of Black Lives Matter, Joseph’s children navigate a new era. They face the challenge of defining themselves in a society shaped by their father’s choices and haunted by the truths Stella once fought to conceal.

The story weaves together the struggles of a new generation to find their voice, identity, and place in a world still wrestling with its past. The echoes of Stella’s decisions resound, reminding us that even as times change, the threads of heritage and truth remain unbroken, binding the present to the past.

Stay tuned for a sneak peek at chapter one!

Yecheilyah’s Book Reviews – Call Me Mama: A Reason to Persevere by Ife Akanegbu

Title: Call Me Mama: A Reader to Persevere

Author: Ife Akanegbu

Publisher: My Cute Prairies

Published: July 1, 2024

Pages: 57

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be an addict, this short narrative will transport you there. From the weight of guilt to the hope of redemption, the author portrays a picture of addiction that will make you reconsider your feelings about addicts.

The story opens with Mariam sitting in a car outside her daughter’s school, watching with binoculars. She is not allowed to see Zora. She has lost access to such privilege.

As someone who grew up with an addicted mother, I understand what it’s like to be a daughter and not have your mother around, which doesn’t always mean she’s not present. For example, Zora refers to Mariam as Aunty, even though she is her mother. She does this because she does not know Mariam is her mother. It took me back to the first nine years of my life when I addressed my mother by her first name. What I appreciated, though, was how the author helped me grasp how it feels from the mother’s perspective. The author’s writing style is poetic, allowing for honesty and grace.

Call Me Mama helps us empathize with the human parts of those who fall prey to addiction, and I love that about good fiction. Don’t just tell me someone is a villain; show me why. How did this person get to this point? What made them the person they are? In addition, we so often see the monster and not the person being held hostage in their bodies, a prison for their unhealed trauma.

“She wanted to beg, plead for another chance, promise that this time would be different. But the words died in her throat, strangled by the shame that had become her constant companion.”

Then, there is Mary-Joanna, a constant temptation. “Come on, let’s get out of here, have some real fun,” she says as they sit in the basement of a church. Her words are like a trigger that sends Mariam’s heart beating against her ribs until she no longer hears anything the speaker is saying, only the promise of relief from the dungeon of darkness she’s found herself in.

But, it is Zora who is the real salvation of Mariam’s story. The innocence of a child and the unconditional love Zora wrap around her mother’s neck offers Mariam the hope she desperately needs. Will she take it?

bitmoji-20191031054252

Ratings

  • Plot Movement / Strength: 5/5
  • Entertainment Factor: 4/5
  • Characterization: 5/5
  • Authenticity / Believable: 5/5
  • Thought Provoking: 5/5

Overall: 5/5

Call Me Mama: A Reason to Persevere by Ife Akanegbu is Available Now on Amazon!

Call Me Mama

To have your book reviewed on this blog, apply here!

Stay tuned for our next dope read!

IMG_8994

Yecheilyah’s Book Reviews is a reputable review service that features writers from all over the world, both traditionally and independently published. We are listed on Kindlepreneur as a top-tier book review blog and Reedsy as one of their vetted active book blogs that provide insightful, excellent book reviews.

*Books are read in the order they are received.

 

Concrete Rose Episode Two: The White Lady

“I give a holler to my sisters on welfare
Tupac cares, if don’t nobody else care”

You know, it’s funny when it rains it pours
They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor.”

-Tupac, Keep Ya Head Up

Even though life tried to take me out in a toilet, I got here healthy, drug-free, and a head full of hair.

After two weeks in the hospital, Mama was allowed to take me home, if that’s what you wanna call it. Our building had been built in the 60s, but it wasn’t much of a building by the late 80s and into the early 90s.

Rats and roaches plagued our apartments, and the housing authorities couldn’t care less. Brand-new babies like me were brought home to nothing but drug dealers and addicts, children sprawled about like clothes somebody left on the floor and forgot to wash, so it wasn’t no surprise when The White Lady came.

That’s what people said when the social workers came to inspect the low-income apartments, “The White Lady.” They ain’t never have a name.

The woman stood in the kitchen, talking to Mama, and looking around our place with distaste. She gazed at the Crisco on top of the stove, as well as the dish rack, which was piled high with plates, bowls, cups, and cutlery. It wasn’t cute, but it was clean.

Her gaze moved to my brother and me, who were playing on the thick blanket on the floor we called a pallet. Well, he was playing, and I was doing whatever it was babies do.

My Uncle Rome hid in the closet next to the bathroom cause he wasn’t on the lease. Black women weren’t allowed to have a man in the house in those days if they wanted to get the Welfare. We also had to hide the new toaster, dish rack, and telephone so they wouldn’t take away any money.

“Mrs. House, your son is developing slowly for his age…”

The short, green-eyed blonde balanced a clipboard in her arms and scratched her nose with the tip of her writing pen. The hoop ring in her right nostril and the sunflower tattoo on her exposed arm caught my Uncle Jerome’s eye.

My favorite uncle and unofficial babysitter, we called my mother’s little brother Rome for short. He thought he was Romeo to every woman’s Juliet. His dark chocolate skin tone and thick lips drove them crazy. Mama said if he took the time to read Romeo and Juliet’s story, he might want to be somebody else.

“Ain’t nothing romantic about no Romeo and Juliet,” she’d lecture him when he bragged about his latest escapades.

“Why is that?”

“They both died fool.”

Uncle Rome said he wasn’t into white women like that, but this one was “sho-nuff fine.” Unk was lying. He loved him some white women. He just wanted to know why she was so young and how long she’d been working with social services to where she could take his sister’s kids.

“…and your 2-month-old is malnourished,” said the White Lady.

“It’s Miss House,” said Mama, taking a drag of her cigarette, inhaling smoke, and blowing it out of her nose. “Since you know so damn much.”

Uncle Rome did one of those fake coughs you do to cover up a laugh.

The lady ignored my mother. “Miss House, have you been using the Food Stamps?”

Unk said Mama frowned, “Yes, I use my stamps. Fuck I look like not to use Food Stamps?”

“I just wanna make sure you didn’t sell them, is all,” said the white lady.

“Oh, so you my judge now? I look incompetent to you?”

See, that’s what I loved about Mama. Yeah, she was a heroin addict, but she wasn’t no fool. A wordsmith with a mouth like a two-edged sword, she’ll curse you out every which way but loose and diversify her vocabulary while at it so you can know she’s cursing because she wants to, not because she doesn’t have the words to say what’s on her mind.

Mama used to write poems and stories before she got pregnant with Aaron. She also went to school to do hair. There wasn’t nothing my Mama couldn’t do. I wished she would get back to her art. Maybe that would help keep her away from the drugs.

“Look, are you done? Cause, as you can see, I have kids to look after.”

The woman scanned the apartment once more, frowning at a roach crawling on the wall. “Let’s just hope you are taking care of these children. This is your final warning, Miss House. If I have to come back here again…”

“Yeah, I know,” interrupted Mama, blowing out more smoke. “Are we done?”

The woman nodded, “We are.”

As she walked toward the door, she stopped to look once more at us and then back at my mother. “Probably not a good idea for you to smoke in front of the children.”

Mama rolled her eyes, dropped the cigarette on the floor, stomped it with her foot, and waved the woman off.

According to my uncle’s story, the woman left us alone after that. But, in my fifth month, someone new came to visit, and I was taken away from Mama and placed in foster care, where I would stay for the next five years.

Did you miss episode one? Check it out here!

Again, I am sharing based on interest! If you like this episode and want to move on to episode 3 (“Miss Sophia,”) let me know! 😃

Concrete Rose: Episode One

“Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? It learned to walk without having feet. Funny, it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else cared.”

– Tupac Amaru Shakur

I was almost born in the toilet.

My brother, Aaron, had just turned two, and Mama was only five months pregnant when Theresa (we call her Reese) caught her shooting up in the bathroom. That’s when she felt my head. “I think I feel my baby,” she slurred.

People around my way love to quote Tupac’s Rose That Grew from Concrete, but they don’t really know what it means. They don’t know nothing about coming up from the hardest part of the earth, snuggled between nothing but weeds, dirt, and the butts of cigarettes.

Then, the sun is so hot sometimes, the poor flowers (that are not really flowers cause they ain’t get the nutrients they need) just wither up and die. That’s what we really fight against here in these slums, in this place they want us to call home, but it ain’t never feel like it. Never felt like a hug or Big Mama’s greens.

That’s how the bathroom was almost my birthplace. Right there at 4840 South State Street, apartment 602. I feel sorry for Reese having to see her auntie slumped over like that and her own mother high as a kite in the other room. How is somebody supposed to get ready for school in this mess?

Reese was strong, though. She banged her fist against the door real hard like the police when they raided the sniper apartments. What is a sniper apartment? It’s just what it says: Empty flats on the top floors drug dealers used to shoot their enemies down below, like snipers on the battlefield.

Photo Cred: Williams Humbles

“Aunt Helen! Auntie, I gotta get ready for school!”

Frustrated, my mother, belly hanging over blue jeans now too small to zip up all the way and a dingy white t-shirt, finally opened the door.

“Come on, girl, shit,” she said, pointing to the tub. “Hurry up,” she rushed as Reese undressed and ran the water.

Mama sat back on the toilet and wrapped the belt tight around her forearm, a burned spoon dangling on the edge of the sink like it was supposed to be there. Like it was a toothbrush waiting to be used. Reese said she remembers praying Aunt Helen wouldn’t ask her to help tie her off like the other times.

“Close that curtain. Hurry up!”

After Mama said she could feel my head, Reese ran out of the bathroom, butt naked, and into her mother’s room. Dazed from her own high, Auntie Lorraine jumped up nevertheless. She knew her sister was pregnant and hurried to the bathroom, except she didn’t use her fist like her daughter. Auntie Lorraine, big-boned and shaped like Sara Baartman, used the back of her foot, slamming it against the door.

“Helen!” she screamed, but Mama wasn’t opening the door, so Auntie Lorraine had to kick it in, the needle falling from my mother’s long, skinny fingers like a witness eager to expose her secrets.

And as they say, the rest is history.

My name is Rosalind House, but everybody calls me Rose for short. I was born two months later, on June 21, 1987, premature and weighing a whopping 3 lbs and screaming at the top of my lungs. They say that’s why my voice is so high-pitched and sweet. They say it’s like something the Lord made. Say, I’m gone use it to shout my way out of this place.

And I did.

Let me tell you how it happened.

I missed writing fiction, so I started a new story!

I am calling it Concrete Rose (for now). I’ll be sharing the first few chapters based on response, so if you wanna read more, let me know! 🙂

Up Next: “The White Lady.”

The Women with Blue Eyes 2: Chapter One

Chapter 1: And a Little Child Shall Deceive Them

The young woman smiled and waved at the jeep as it sped by, and her brown eyes turned blue.

Paschar twisted her neck, cracking it as it spun around on her shoulders. She looked down at her hands, stretching her fingers.

“Not bad,” she admired herself, ran her hands across the youthful body, and sat down on the bench. She stared down at her chest. The boobs weren’t much to speak of, but she couldn’t expect much in this form. She had heard stories of humans and puberty, a foreign thing to angels who could masquerade in adult bodies instantly.

Paschar watched the cars zoom by, the school busses pick up children, and the scores of humans rushing off to work. An elderly lady sat down on the bench next to her.

“How you?” she said, looking through her purse.

Pas nodded, afraid to speak. She had never had a body this young before.

Noticing the silence, the woman looked up and clutched her chest with one hand. “Your eyes,” she said in a breathless voice. “I ain’t never seen ‘em that bright before.”

Paschar blushed and smiled awkwardly, thankful to see the bus approaching.

The woman stood, swinging her purse over her shoulder, unable to take her eyes off the young woman with the majestic eyes.

“Go on, baby,” she said, letting Paschar in front of her as the bus came to a halt and opened its doors.

Pas coughed and cleared her throat. “Oh no, that’s okay. You can go.”

“No, it’s alright. And you’re gonna wanna do something about that cough. Put something around those skinny lil arms of yours.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The woman nodded.

Portrait of Young Woman
Artwork for TWWBE by David Collin

Paschar dropped her coins into the machine and moved to the rear of the bus, and cuddled up to a window seat.

As the bus prepared to take off, it stopped to allow a car to pass and Paschar’s eyes flashed in that familiar way. Her senses heightened as she picked up the familiar scent. Every human had a signature smell to their blood. Like fingerprints, no one was alike.

Pas licked her lips. She didn’t need to turn to see Kayla sitting in the passenger’s seat of Miss Bernice’s car or Micheal sitting in the back. She could practically taste their essence—the purest of energy.

Her eyes twinkled, and her leg bounced up and down. She knew she had to calm herself before she growled. It was all so exciting. Pas could hardly contain herself thinking about seeing Janiyah’s Jeep just moments ago and now Micheal and Kayla. Why had she not thought about this before?

She had had it all wrong. No one cared about Black men. But people were extremely friendly to young humans, naïve even. There were no limits to how far her powers could stretch as a sixteen-year-old in Ethiopian skin.

She felt a coolness come over her as a low, deep throat growl threatened to spill from her mouth.

Paschar leaned back into her seat and exhaled. All was not lost. Her legion might have lost the battle, but she was going to make damn sure they did not lose the war.

She couldn’t wait to start her new job with Janiyah and Tabitha.

twwtbe

This is a continuation of The Women with Blue Eyes series I turned into a novel.

To read sneak peeks of book one published to this blog click here.

7272

To buy me a cup of coffee, purchase the book by CLICKING HERE.

Freedom Ring – Part One

Photo by Ron Lach from Pexels

The Train

Louis pulled the olive-drab wool service cap down as far as it could go. Why he was hiding his face, he didn’t know. It was not like anyone could see him. Louis’s heart fluttered. After all these years, even the thought of her made him blush. His excitement was quickly replaced by sorrow. He had not been the best husband. Maybe if he were, she would not have asked for that restraining order, he would not have joined the Army, and the terrible future he knew was coming would not happen.

But Louis was on a mission, so now he couldn’t think about that. Life was funny in that way. Sometimes you don’t realize your purpose until after you have already lived.

The scream of the train’s horn startled him out of his thoughts. The 63rd Street Station in Chicago was lively, with travelers. He looked down at his watch as the train’s horn sounded again. They will be here any minute now.

“Now, where do you think you are going?”

Louis looked up and smiled. That tiny voice and round, golden-brown face always did something to him. Then, she had the nerve to have those sexy glasses on. But Mamie wasn’t talking to him and had not spoken to him in years. No, Mamie Carthan was talking to their son.

Louis stopped thinking about her beauty and rushed over to stand next to them. There was not much time left, and although he knew neither one could see him, the whole situation still made him nervous. Nerves. Was that even a thing anymore? Louis brushed imaginary lint from his wool, four-button olive coat. It was the same coat he had been wearing for ten years now. The same uniform he has worn since he died.

“Come on, ma. I’m gonna be late,” whined the chubby little boy.

Louis smiled. He knew Emmett would be a handful the day they discovered he was a breech baby. That’s why he gave him his name because he knew he’d be hard-headed, just like his father. Emmett Louis Till. Bursting into the world wide-eyed and feet first.

“Yea, but you didn’t kiss me goodbye.”

Emmett smiled and gave Mamie a peck on the cheek.

Give her the watch.

Louis cleared his throat. He hadn’t realized how long it’s been since he had said anything out loud. He looked around at the people walking by. It was strange the way they seemed to look right at him.

Give her the watch. 

He repeated the command as he stared down at his son.

You won’t need it where you are going.

He could see the boy thinking the words over in his head. He knew he thought they were coming from his own mind. Louis had come to learn that sadness was different in the after-world, but if he could, he would shed a tear. He stood watching his son remove the watch he was wearing and give it to his mother, and his heart ached at the future.

“Here,” said Emmett, “take my watch.”

Mamie frowned as she put it on, “Why?”

“I won’t need it where I’m going,” he said, turning his back to his mother and dashing off in the direction of the train where his cousin Wheeler and great Uncle Moses were waiting.

“Bobo, wait! What about your ring?”

Louis turned away from Emmett to look admirably at his ex-wife. She was the one and had always been the one. He thought she was chosen for him to be his wife this entire time. But the truth is she was chosen to be Emmett’s mother.

He pulled himself away from her face. He was running out of time. Emmett had to be on that train.

Show it to the fellas.

Emmett turned around and pulled the ring from his pants pocket, and put it on, rubbing his fingers across his father’s initials. He lifted his head and stared straight ahead, like someone who had just discovered a new world or happened upon a new invention, and flashed a big grin.

“I’m gonna show this to the fellas!”

Mamie laughed and waved her handkerchief.

“Alright then, boy. Go on ahead now.”

Louis watched his son jump on the train and Mamie staring after him. He remembered the day he got the thing made in Europe, just one year since he had been drafted into the Army. But it was not his ring anymore. Soon, the whole African American community would wear that ring. 

No. This was no longer LT’s ring. Now, it was the ring of freedom.

The quietness of the station alarmed him, and Louis looked around in awe of the now dark, empty station. The Master warned him that time moved differently here. He had better get a move on it if he was going to make it to Money in time.

Louis inhaled deeply as his body disintegrated into the wind for his next mission.

After watching ABC’s “Let the World See” about the role of Mamie Till and how she handled Emmett Till’s death, I was happy to see some discussion about Emmett’s father, Louis. Since grade school, I have been studying the Emmett Till story, when I first learned about it, heard many versions of the story, and have seen countless documentaries. My favorite is the one that aired in 2005, “The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till,” on YouTube. I like it mostly because Mamie Till was still alive and could tell it the way only she could.

But in all the docs, even my favorite one, there was never anything about his father. This had me thinking.

What if we tell both of their stories at the same time? 

Louis Till died at the young age of twenty-three when he was accused of assaulting some Italian women in Europe while serving overseas in the Transportation Corps of the U.S. Army during World War II. He and a friend were found guilty and lynched in 1945. 

What if our story doesn’t end here? 

What if the spirit world informs Louis about his son’s death and its necessity to jump start The Civil Rights Movement? 

And what if it becomes Louis’s responsibility to make sure Emmett wears his ring so that they can identify his body? 

And what if his soul isn’t allowed to rest until he does? 

What if we can tell both stories through the power of the ring that binds them?