About the Book
A marriage, a friendship, the fate of a missing child ...
All three hang in the balance.
Noah and Dana are already facing a difficult time in their short marriage when their daughter, Samara, is abducted. The fallout from friends and family, and the harsh judgment of the public, force them to face some difficult truths about their views on love, marriage, and race. As Dana reflects on the road leading to her and Noah's union, she begins to examine her motives for getting married, consider whether they should go on, and most painfully, question whether she and her husband ever really knew each other at all.
Noah and Dana are already facing a difficult time in their short marriage when their daughter, Samara, is abducted. The fallout from friends and family, and the harsh judgment of the public, force them to face some difficult truths about their views on love, marriage, and race. As Dana reflects on the road leading to her and Noah's union, she begins to examine her motives for getting married, consider whether they should go on, and most painfully, question whether she and her husband ever really knew each other at all.
My Thoughts
IN BLACK & WHITE by Nia Forrester is another highly commendable
addition to her catalogue. She offers some thoughtful insights about privilege
and interracial relationships in this book about a separated couple living the
nightmare of having their child abducted.
The book splits its focus between the tension of not knowing
what’s happened to your child, the friction of a couple experiencing a strained
relationship and the pensiveness of a character questioning her understanding
of her life and the choices she’s made.
Dana’s contemplation about her relationship with Noah
through self-reflection and conversations she has with others are what makes
this book for me. It’s weighty and deep and kept me turning those pages.
What stops me from giving this book five stars is the
abduction storyline. I felt its inclusion stretched the book too thinly. I
understand it acts as a catalyst for Dana and Noah’s current indecisiveness but
it’s a lot to tackle in a book that’s already substantial. Perhaps my lack of investment in the abduction storyline also stems from me guessing who abducted Samara early on.
I highly recommend IN BLACK & WHITE. For me,
Forrester is a leader at writing about relationships in romance fiction.
About the Author
I live in Philadelphia, PA where I am a public policy attorney, spending much of my time mining my experiences for material to write about. My intended audience is anyone who likes what I write, but one of my missions is to speak directly to the experiences of women of color who don’t fit the mold and don’t see themselves represented in gritty urban novels about drugs, guns and the ghetto, but who occasionally want to read something a little more accessible than the lyrical but complex prose of some of our best poets and writers.
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