Hostage of Lies (Urban Soul Presents)
Author
Maxine Thompson
Publisher
Urban Soul
2 Review Copies Left
Hostage Of Lies
Nefertiti “Titi” Godbolt’s been a captive of her family’s secrets her whole life. Now, as she returns home after seven years, she’s ready to confront her family and finally get some answers. It’s her father’s seventy-fifth birthday celebration, but she’s not there to celebrate a man who always seemed to favor her siblings Josh and Cleo, while he, along with Titi’s mother, treated Titi as the black sheep in the family—even before she got pregnant and they forced her to give up her daughter. But when Titi’s father and his brother have it out during the party, some long-buried family secrets pop to the surface, and Titi realizes there may be some truth to the stories her great-grandmother told her when she was a child after all.
Reviews
Hostage of Lies Maxine Thompson ISBN: 978-1-59983-095-7 Urban Books Hostage of Lies was a pretty good book. This book touches bases on slavery, voodoo, interacial marriages, and prejudice. The family in the book has alot of issues and secrets.Titi gave birth at a tender age and gave the baby up for adoption. On her father's 75th birthday she chooses to come home and search for the baby she gave up.Her current husband, her second, does not know she had gave birth to a 3rd child, and is multi-racial, though she passes for white. Two men want her back, one her first husband, the other is the father to the baby she gave up for adoption. Titi's father is out-right mean to her and Titi never understands why she is being treated this way. She knows she messed up her father's standing in their community as minister. This book describes the events as they unfold, the secrets are the best as you never know what is coming next. This book is intriging to the last page, and secrets all the way. I highly recommend this book to everyone, no matter their race, or thoughts.
Reviewed on 09/06/2011 by ReviewTheBook.com Member donna mcguire
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<meta content="OpenOffice.org 3.2 (Linux)" name="GENERATOR">Overall, this was a pretty good book. It was a difficult read for me, though. There were so many underlying stories, and the fact that it was told out of sequence, with so many characters, that I was a little confused at times. This book touches on slavery, voodoo, interracial marriage, family relations, prejudice in the African American community based on skin color, expectations for people who've “made” it in the African American community, genealogy...
There is a lot of racism, and a lot of the use of the “n-word”, that I was uncomfortable. Although I'm African American I've never experienced much of either of those two issues, which is probably what made them uncomfortable for me. I've never heard the “n-word” used in my immediate family – ever. Not from my parents or siblings. If my memory is correct, I was 18 the first time I heard that word, and I remember the specific circumstance. It wasn't pleasant, and I'll never forget it, though.
Oh my gosh this family has a LOT of issues and secrets. Whew! Nefertiti, called Titi, birthed a child at a young age and gave her up for adoption. She has been estranged from her family for years, and chooses the weekend of her father's 75th birthday celebration to come home and begin to search for the daughter she gave up for adoption. Her current husband, her second, doesn't know that she gave birth to a 3rd child, and is multi-racial, but could pass for white. Nefertiti's family and Nefertiti herself have unresolved issues around this. Isaac, her first husband and the father of her two other children, who cheated on her and ended up marrying the woman he cheated on her with, and who now makes him absolutely miserable, wants her back. Pharoah, who is the father of the girl she gave up for adoption, has served two tours in Vietnam, and is unstable, also wants her back.
Her father is down-right mean to her, and she doesn't understand it – except that she's being punished for getting pregnant at such a young age, which would ruin her father's standing in the community as a minister. The real reason is so much worse.
This book describes the events from the Wednesday that she comes back home to Shallow's Corner to the day after her father's birthday celebration, and is packed with intrigue. All the way to the last page. I didn't know that very last secret was even coming! </meta>
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Reviewed on 05/22/2010 by ReviewTheBook.com Member Monique Burkes
HOSTAGE OF LIES: SECRETS OF A SMALL TOWN
Have you ever felt haunted by your past? Are you curious about your family history? Are you considered the black sheep in your family? If so, you can relate to the main character of “Hostage of Lies.”
Forty-year-old Nefertiti has finally returned home after seven long years. The man who banished her from Shallow’s Corner is celebrating his seventy-fifth birthday. But Titi didn’t come back to help with her father’s party. She came back home to Michigan for other personal reasons: to find the child she gave up for adoption in 1967. Meanwhile, brothers Isaac and Pharaoh are still fighting over Titi like a piece of property. It seems that old habits die hard, while the absence of Titi made their hearts grow fonder.
The story itself takes place over a span of five days. However, the history goes back generations. At times it was difficult to follow the storyline since it is told out of sequence. Although I understand the author’s intent to explain the past and prove its importance to the characters present lives. “Hostage of Lies” is a written example of how secrets affect a family. Dr. Maxine Thompson cleverly combines African-American history and suspense into a deep plot.
January 24, 2010
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Reviewed on 01/24/2010 by ReviewTheBook.com Member L Marie Harris
