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“Things Every Southern Woman Should Know How to Make”

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Alice clicked on the headline, mildly curious about what yet another stranger thought should be in her kitchen repertoire. Pictures of China plates mounded with crispy fried chicken, greens, cobbler, and a pile of biscuits a mile high flooded the screen, all set off with a pitcher of sweet tea beaded with condensation. The table was set; an apron draped off to the side next to a box labeled “Gramma’s Recipes” in fine calligraphy. She closed the browser and put away her tablet. She was born a Georgia peach, but she couldn’t make a cobbler to save her life. Did that mean she wasn’t southern? Or maybe just not “Southern.” For Alice, there was no recipe box full of family traditions. Her younger years were filled with rental homes in different states and her father’s voice coaxing her toward a text book rather than a cookbook. Metalworking and fabrication held more interest than learning to flambé or sauté. Did it make her less of a woman that her cooking skills consisted of fresh salads...
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Book Recs: A BLADE SO BLACK by L.L. McKinney

Alison “Alice” Kingston suffers the worst night of her life when her father dies. Overcome with grief, she flees into the dark, and trips down the rabbit hole. Only, the rabbit hole doesn’t take her to a brightly colored world filled with odd wonders and a disappearing cat; it instead threatens her with a monster—a Nightmare—and introduces her to Addison Hatta, who recruits her to fight the Nightmares plaguing Wonderland and encroaching on the human world. A BLADE SO BLACK is a magnificent twist on Alice in Wonderland , where Alice is a dual-blade wielding Dreamwalker badass backed up by her mentor, the mysterious Addison Hatta and the sleepy-eyed Maddie, a Poet who keeps them going with her potions. She’s got a healthy fear of her mom, who worries about her and wants her to stay safe in a world that’s not always safe for a black girl going about her business. I really like Alice and her friends. Even though she was a skilled fighter, she didn’t come out on top in every battle,...
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Book Recs: DREAD NATION by Justina Ireland

If you like kickass girls fighting zombies in a post-Civil War alternate history, then you should read DREAD NATION by Justina Ireland. Attendant-in-training Jane McKeene knows her way around a sickle when it comes to taking out shamblers, and she hopes to use those skills to make her way home to her family once she graduates from Ms. Preston’s, an academy where black girls are trained to fight the risen dead to later serve the white elites in the protected cities of the United States. But Jane has different plans—graduation is her ticket to carve out her own path and attain the freedom that the end of the Civil War failed to bring. DREAD NATION has great, well-rounded characters and a fascinating alternate history. People’s prejudices often lead them to underestimate Jane, and she uses this to her benefit not only to save her own hide, but usually theirs as well. Unfortunately, Jane’s smarts are often dismissed due to the racism of the white Survivalist party that’s in charg...
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