Black Candle Women
Title: Black Candle Women by Diane Marie Brown
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟💫 (3.5)
Genre: Fiction, Magical Realism, Contemporary, Paranormal
Culture: Black Culture, New Orleans French Quarter
Themes: Black motherhood, Secrets, Love and Death, Voodoo
Spells, Secrets, and Black Motherhood
Black Candle Women by Diane Marie Brown is an intoxicating rich contemporary novel of generational trauma, family secrets and a curse. Generations of Montrose women—Augusta, Victoria, Willow—have always lived together in their quaint California bungalow. They keep to themselves, never venture far from home, and their collection of tinctures and spells is an unspoken bond between them. But when young Nickie Montrose brings home a boy for the first time, their quiet lives are thrown into disarray.
With a backdrop of voodoo, magic, and the richness of New Orleans’s French Quarter, I genuinely enjoyed Black Candle Women and its ode to black motherhood and generational trauma. From Lanora to black candles to spell casting, each woman navigates hidden truths, secrets, and revenge that alters their love lives and their outlook on men. Full of warmth, I loved how the intricate details of Augusta, Williow, Victoria and Nickie’s lives were intertwined; allowing them to rely on and accept each other despite how they each handled different situations
Learning the backstory of each woman from survival, life choices, love and finding themselves provided an in depth and unique look into the black experience. Experiences that are only seen with black women, especially how we view men and how we find love many times in all the wrong places. Willow’s carefree spirit was a joy to read, she is my favorite character, and her will to live her life to the fullest was funny and poignant. However, many of her choices led to her down the wrong path; placing her in situations that were less than ideal. Despite this, I feel she represented a moral compass and a mirror of self-reflection all the women especially her niece Nickie who struggled to determine what is fact vs. fiction
What I found most difficult at times were the constant secrets the women held onto, choosing to not be truthful when it was absolutely necessary. This inevitably made their lives more difficult, harder to navigate, and prevented them from getting the support from members of the family. With so many secrets, this made the story longer and more drawn out than it needed to be with slow parts that saw me losing interest. Augusta’s backstory was pivotal in setting the stage for the rest of the book, but I felt it took forever to be revealed and it could have been done much earlier. I actually found the past timeline events with Augusta more interesting that the current timeline events. The arguments between Willow and Victoria got old to me and didn’t really seem to go anywhere; it could have been solved earlier.
Nickie’s ability to navigate her teenage years, high school, and boyfriend (sort of) is all too familiar for many teenagers these days. She tries to make the best decisions based on the information she has but ultimately winds up in a dangerous situation. Nickie lacks a true, open, and honest relationship with her mother, which she needs at this point in her life. It reminded me of how important the relationship is between mothers and daughters, one that needs to be cultivated and nurtured continuously even in adulthood.
Despite its slow-medium pace, I thought the book was well written, touching, and full of twisty secrets that kept me reading. This is definitely a slow burn book that is worth reading if you’re looking for multiple timelines, multi-person point of view, and black magic.
