Kin: A Novel

Kin: A Novel by Tayari Jones

Two "orphaned" black girls grow up in Jim Crow south. One was abandoned by her mother. The other's father murdered her mother. They are friends in their youth, but their paths diverge. Vernice attends Spelman college and marries into a wealthy family. Annie has a more blue-collar life and works in a club and attempts to find her mother. She is first told her mother died, but later found she was still alive - with a child that shared her name. Her fiancé dumps and she gives into her boss's moves. Things don't go well and she loses her job and gets pregnant. She goes to Vernice to get help. She gets an illegal abortion, but dies from internal bleeding. The book fades away at the end with Vernice and her reckoning with her past. These people had rough lives, but they tried to make the best of their situation.

Love and Madness

Love and Madness by Herbert Croft

I was not feeling it for this book. It was primarily about a murder, but the part that stuck most was talk about a forgery. Somebody was seemingly a great forger. But his forgeries showed significant skill that indicated he may be quite talented as himself. It also provided an identification that he was murdered and did not take his own life. If he had been forging, he could have just made new documents when he ran into financial challenges rather than commit suicide. There are many "letters" that are provided before and after this that tell the story in this book.