The author Jerome Dickey, who was a common feature on the best-sellers list for more than 20 years, has sadly passed away at the age of 59.
The US writer created 30 novels about thrilling daring adventures and heart pounding romances that revolved around young African American characters.
He also wrote a series of Marvel comics about a love story between X-Men’s Storm and the Black Panther.
“His work has become a cultural touchstone over the course of his multi-decade writing career, earning him millions of dedicated readers around the world,” his publicist Becky Odell told USA Today.
Dickey was born in Memphis, Tennessee and began his working life as a software developer for an aerospace industry. When he was laid off from that job though Dickey found his true calling and took him writing.
He first gained prominence in the 1990’s during a book for African-American literature. His debut novel ‘Sister, Sister’ explored the lives and relationships of three siblings. It was a powerful and moving portrayal of African-American life and was recently named one of the 50 Most Impactful Black Books of the Last 50 Years by Essence magazine.
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He was often praised for his ability to write “believable and powerful” female characters. Indeed his female characters were so engaging he quickly gained a huge female readership, leading to the New York Times calling him the “chick lit king.”
Calvin Reid, an editor at trade magazine Publishers Weekly, said: “He captures black language and black middle-class characters with more depth than you often see in commercial fiction.”
He soon branched out into stories of crime and suspense, though he never left the steamy tangled relationships he had become known for.
Dickey had four daughters but avoided basing his plots on his own life. “I avoid my life,” he once said. “It bores me. Trust me. A book about me would be a snoozefest.”
His final novel, The Son of Mr Suleman, will be published in April.
D.A. Butcher comes out swinging hard with this stunning debut novel. Eyes of Sleeping Children is a psychological thriller set in the 1930’s and takes place in a depression hit Kansas that is about to bare the brunt of a giant dust storm.
The focus of this story falls squarely upon the Lockhart family, and specifically upon the father Louis. As the storm begins to attack their small family farm the Lockhart’s seek shelter in their cellar.
Eyes of Sleeping Children Cover
Yet the storm is but the beginning of this families tragedies, after awakening from a troubled night of sleep Louis finds that his son, Jesse, is missing, yet there is neither a sign of forced entry or that the young boy has left the house.
Who, or possibly what, is to blame? While Louis looks for an answer within the reality he understands, his wife begins to break down and lay the blame squarely upon a figure from the realm of nightmares, The Sandman.
Louis must work quickly if he has any hope of ever seeing his son again, he sets out on a journey that will delve into the past, and into secrets long since lost to time.
But that’s enough about the book’s plot, I really would not want to ruin this one for you.
This is a daring, but well executed, debut novel that takes a number of different genres and themes and makes them all coalesce brilliantly as the story comes to its climax.
At times this feels like a locked room thriller, while at other times it delves wonderfully into some psychological twisted world that sends shivers racing up and down your spine. And yet through all of that it somehow manages to blend and balance it very nicely with a depression era set family and their day to day struggles and drama.
The story is told through the eyes and mind of Louis Lockhart, and for the most part he is an engaging and interesting character that we as outside readers can easily empathise with. And while there are a supporting cast of mostly interesting characters it is with Louis that we are firmly embedded, both narratively and emotionally.
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As Louis frantically begins his hunt to find his missing son the book ratchets up a notch and becomes a zealous race to unravel the mysteries and discover the truth lurking in the shadows. Over time though it is Louis himself who begins to unravel and whose mind deteriorates, while this gives for some excellent character focus and really brings Louis alive and fleshes out his characterisations, it also slows down the pace of the book at points to little more than a crawl. While this is not a major issue it does make the book feel imbalanced.
Author Spotlight is our series that aims to give writers a platform to talk about the artform we all love, writing. This time around D. A. Butcher joins us to talk about his life, his struggles, and his passion for writing. Check out this excellent article. I grew up in London. My mother is Italian…
However, as the story enters its final acts it rekindles the fire that had burned so brightly at its opening. In fact by the final pages this book had burnt not only itself out but me as well, there are some disturbing scenes throughout this novel that have stayed with me long after the final word has fluttered its way through my mind.
The twists and turns that lead up to the grand finale are mind bindingly well conceived and that climax, boy was that a treat to behold. Throughout most of the novel I thought I knew the truth, I thought I was an all knowing reader, but I was very much mistaken, Butcher had more than a few tricks up his sleeve to leave me feeling the fool.
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Indeed so much of this book has stayed so vividly with me that while writing this review I feel like I have only just put it down when in reality I finished this book week ago, and have read many others since then.
Not only is the story well conceived it is also very well written, Butcher has the skills and talents of a much more seasoned writer.
There are a couple of negative points though, as with any book. I think there are a few pacing errors that make the book feel unbalanced, it almost feels like there are two books wearing the trench coat of one sometimes. The dialogue can at times feel a little stilted, and I would say there are a few too many metaphors and similes used which can slow down the pace of the book somewhat, but this is me being overly pedantic and attempting to find something to balance this review.
Overall this is easily one of the best debut novels I have ever read, indeed it is one of the best psychological thrillers I have ever read period, and I will no doubt be diving back into again soon, and I sincerely implore all of you to do the same.
Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 10 out of 10.
If you’d like to check out Eyes of Sleeping Children for yourself, and I highly recommend you do, you can find it over on Amazon.
I love vampires and I’ve have written about them more than once on this website, so I loved it when Fiona’s Guardians dropped into our inbox. This unique and intriguing novel was just the thing to devour over a free weekend.
Daniel is more dedicated to his job than most people are, and certainly far more than he should be. Daniel’s job is his life, and it’s an unusual life to say the least. You see Daniel is the guardian of a 250 year old vampire named Fiona.
Daniel’s main job is pretty straightforward actually, to supply Fiona with 10 pints of blood every day. He also needs to manage a bunch of investments to fund this, but its really the acquisition of the blood that’s his main focus.
This is certainly no easy feat but when Fiona becomes the target of a secret group of vatican vampire hunters (called Mors Strigae) its gets even more difficult, not to mention deadly.
This is an interesting story which for the most part fully delivers on what it promises. The idea of exploring the day to day activities of a modern day vampire assistant is intriguing and is easily the most fleshed out and well defined aspect of the novel. Everything about the job is explored and given purpose and meaning within the larger context of the story. Daniel on the other hand is not, he felt a little forgotten and lost within the confines of his job.
Vampires have enjoyed something of a renaissance in modern literature and one of the main reasons for that is the sexual nature of what is otherwise a monster from the depths of mankind’s nightmares
Though I suppose that was intentional, for all intents and purposes he was his job, his whole life revolved around Fiona and what he had to do to guard her and service her needs. Yet it still would have been nice to know him more as a character and feel some sort of connection with him, but I understand why he was explored so little.
As for the plotline itself I was invested enough to read to the end quickly, but I also found it a little convoluted with numerous perspectives from various characters, I think a more limited narrative structure and focus would have been beneficial.
At points I found myself losing my grip on the story as I attempted to correlate the new perspective with what I had already read. When you couple this flowing between perspectives with different time periods it can be a little difficult to keep everything straight in ones head.
This sadly also moves focus away from Daniel and Fiona, which is a shame because this is their story and sometimes they feel sidelined by anothers narrative.
With that said though this was an enjoyable read that I would heartily recommend for any horror or vampire fans, doubly so if you love both. It is a fun and exciting read that could do with a polish but then so could we all.
Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 8 out of 10.
You can get a copy of Fiona’s Guardians from Amazon.
Author Spotlight is our new series that aims to give a platform for writers to discuss the art form we all love so much. This time we are joined by Jon Hartless as he takes a look at “The right to write – who can tell stories in a pluralistic society?”
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below…
Jon Hartless
Recently, voices have been raised concerning who has the right to tell certain stories. Jordan Marie Green announced the debut of a romantic novel set in Tahiti before a backlash against cultural appropriation and stereotyping prompted the book’s withdrawal. Becky Albertalli had to out herself as bisexual under pressure from several Internet commentators who felt she had no right to write about gay teenagers as she was (presenting as) a straight woman, and finally a disabled gameplayer unwittingly unleashed a wave of ableist anger at her inclusion of a combat wheelchair in the DnD universe.
It is the last two which intersect with my own work, for I recently started publishing a Steampunk series featuring a bisexual, disabled protagonist – and now I’m wondering if I was right to do so, given I’m heterosexual and able-bodied. (Steampunk, in case you don’t know, is set in an alternative timeline and features advanced technology. Mechanical prosthetics are popular tropes within the genre, along with airships and goggles).
When I started writing the series, I wanted to examine the gulf between the rich and the poor, as well as the associated chasm between the socially acceptable (i.e. white, male, hetero, posh) and everyone else. Hence the creation of Poppy Orpington; a woman in a man’s world. A bisexual within heteronormative culture. Disabled in an ableist society. And poor within a capitalist hierarchy which works exclusively for the benefit of the wealthy elite.
Furthermore, I was determined to use the tropes of Steampunk in a “believable” way, and in a manner which served the plot, rather than just gratuitously inserting them without any real thought. For this reason, Poppy is born with a missing arm, (for birth defects are common in her society, at least for those who live in poverty), and she only acquires a fully functioning prosthetic after a turnaround in her family’s fortune.
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This, then, is Poppy’s world. She must hide her sexuality for the sake of her personal welfare, while her disabilities bring her into conflict with the dominant ableist beliefs of the era. So, how would Poppy feel if she suddenly had opportunities hitherto denied to her? The opportunities of relative wealth, of limited social acceptance, and of having a fully integrated prosthetic which would allow her to live a “normal” life – though it must be noted that the concept of “normal” is constructed by the discriminatory attitudes of able-bodied society.
These were the subjects I wanted to examine, and I did my best to be as sensitive as possible, but did I have the right to even try in the first place? Even as I’m penning this article, the issue of Becky Albertalli’s sexuality is still rumbling on, with one Twitter commentator asserting that non-queer creators shouldn’t be making money from the queer audience – though this is by no means a universal opinion.
Full Throttle Cover
I honestly don’t know what the answer is to this, or even if there is an answer. But I am now keenly aware that I’m merely an outsider looking in, and if I were writing the Poppy series today, I doubt I would include anything about sexuality or disability at all.
That would have created some difficulties with regard to the plot, given Poppy’s character is (like all of us) created by the society she is raised in, (not to mention the vital role her prosthetic plays in the later stages of book 1), but it would probably have been a lot safer, and more considerate, to restructure the book rather than to risk offending innumerable people through a lack of knowledge and understanding.
Jon Hartless is the author of Full Throttleand Rise of the Petrol Queen, books 1 & 2 in the Poppy Orpington series. Book 3, Fall of the Petrol Queen, should be released in October 2020 via Tenebrous Texts.
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