Diane Marie Brown - Black Candle Women
Rookie Season: Debuts | Week 64º
Rookie Season: Debuts
Extra seasoning for your everyday food for thought
Genre: Magical Realism, Paranormal Fiction
“She’d learned early on about a certain unfairness in life. Some folks struggled disproportionately, carrying things that others couldn’t even lift.”
— Diane Marie Brown
Back Cover (Graydon House):
“Generations of Montrose women—Augusta, Victoria, Willow—have lived together in their quaint two-story bungalow in California for years. They keep to themselves, never venture far from home, and their collection of tinctures and spells is an unspoken bond between them. But when seventeen-year-old Nickie Montrose brings home a boy for the first time, their quiet lives are thrown into disarray. For the other women have been withholding a secret from Nickie that will end her relationship before it’s even begun: the decades-old family curse that any person they fall in love with dies. Their surprise guest forces each woman to reckon with her own past choices and mistakes. And as new truths about the curse emerge, the family is set on a collision course dating back to a Voodoo shop in 1950s New Orleans’s French Quarter—where a hidden story in a mysterious book may just hold the answers they seek in life and in love . . .”
Black Candle Women, the 2023 debut novel by American author Diane Marie Brown, takes place on the sun-kissed, paved streets of Long Beach, California, but finds its inauspicious origins deep within the wet, murky swamps of Louisiana.
It tells the story of four generations of Black women as they try to overcome a family curse that kills anyone with whom they fall in love.
Brown’s debut novel (a Today Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick in March 2023),1 Black Candle Women has received a ton of praise.
Noted filmmaker Ava DuVernay called it, “An intoxicating potion of warmth, wisdom, and wonder.”2
Accomplished author De’Shawn Charles Winslow adds, “Black Candle Women is a compassionate novel about motherhood, sisterhood, independence, and the reflection and forgiveness required to break generational curses.”
“She knew how it felt to have so many unanswered questions about a parent, but some things Nickie would have to discover on her own. Other things she prayed Nickie would never find out.”
— Diane Marie Brown, Black Candle Women
Did You Know?
Did you know that Diane Marie Brown is a professor at Orange Coast College3 and a public health professional for the Long Beach Health Department?
Diane Marie Brown has a BA and a MPH (Master of Public Health) from UCLA, plus a degree in fiction from USC’s Master of Professional Writing Program! Incredible!
Tell Me More . . .
Diane Brown grew up in Stockton, California, moving to Long Beach, California, after college, where she now lives, with her husband, four beautiful daughters, and a good doggie named Brownie.
Some Food For Thought:
When discussing her many varied interests and accomplishments, Professor Brown commented, “I want my students to know that they can have multiple passions, that they can have multiple careers.”
“This has been a lesson in not letting go of your passions. I wrote this book ten years ago, and I had put it away, but I could not let it go. I loved the characters so much.”
In fact, Black Candle Women, Professor Brown's debut, was the first time a debut author had been showcased on the coveted list, “Read With Jenna Book Club Picks”—books independently chosen by Jenna Bush Hager simply because she “loves them.”
Rookie Season: Debuts
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