Millenia Black

Despite the controversy around the release of this novel by Author, Millenia Black who is African American, however, “The Great Betrayal,” The novel features Caucasian characters. The book was accepted in outline form with the characters as white. Black then wrote the novel based on this outline. It was just after Black had finished the manuscript when the characters race change was requested by her editor to change the characters to African-American. Ms. Black won on this issue and has an interesting story to tell.

The book is about family secrets, relationships, struggles, drama, over-coming obstacles, growing. It's about love, loss, pain, loyalty, and betrayal.
This novel was well-written, and I believe Ms. Black has a great formula, moving from the past to the present skillfully. Even if you don't like the characters you’re compelled to read on. Ms. Black made flawed characters fascinating with intense, emotional dialog and vibrant narrative. It had enough drama to make me want to see how it all played out in the end. There are scenes of child molestation, which are not graphic, but convey the feeling without being too explicit.

She picked the right title for this book. If you like a book with romance, family obstacles and scandals then “The Great Betrayal” is a must read. I listened to the audio version of this book checked out from my local library. As a first time reader/listener for this author who also penned “The Great Pretender.”

I thought I had the betrayal figured out in the beginning, but there were enough twists to have me doubting myself until the very end. In the cloudy conclusion, in the epilogue, leaves too much room for the reader to have to fill in what happened to all the people that were affected by Leslie and her decisions. I like a finished story, even a sad ending and maybe that is what this is. It's left open-ended for a sequel.… (mais)

This book was extremely disappointing. I chose it for our book club based on the good reviews it had on Amazon, and I thought the subject matter would make for a good discussion. But I'm surprised my fellow book club members didn't kick me out of the club for choosing this one. It really was awful. It read like a bad soap opera. And I question if there was an editor involved, as there were many typos and such. As I read it several years ago & it is not particularly fresh in my memory now, I can't do a review to do it justice, but suffice to say you might want to think twice about picking up this one. I'm not an author, but I think I could've certainly taken this subject matter and written a better book.… (mais)

"...looking Crockett-and-Tubbs cool..."

I love Millenia's style and this one was a roller coaster of emotions throughout the book. I loved the desperation of the characters. In this book, as opposed to The Great Pretender, the characters were likable. I wanted to help them. I wanted them to help themselves. They became so real to me. Twists and turns, I never knew what to expect next. Although I did have the betrayal figured out in the beginning, there were enough twists to have me doubting myself. Upon the realization I was correct though, it was still a horrible shock to the system. I liked The Great Pretender, but I REALLY liked The Great Betrayal.

http://iamagirldork.livejournal.com/26529.html… (mais)