Dark Genesis (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 1). by A.D. KoboahMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
“Dark Genesis” is Book 1 in The Darkling Trilogy, by A. D. Koboah, a lovely and enticing interweaving of contemporary paranormal with historical slave society and suffering. It proves to be far more than what I had expected from the blurb, and so much the better for it.
Our narrator is an heiress in a family worth millions, the more surprisingly because the family is African-American, descendants of ancestors who suffered through slavery. She is psychic: she frequently experiences intimations of danger, and occasionally psychometry (impressions picked up through touch of an object). But this is nothing compared to the discoveries revealed by a journal, kept in slave days in Mississippi, locked away in her late grandmother’s trunk, kept at her aunt’s home in Atlanta. One point of interest is that in the entire lead-in to the journal of the young slave girl, Luna, which begins in 1807 in Mississippi, our contemporary narrator is kept nameless.
In its own quiet way, “Dark Genesis” really brings home vividly and concretely the depradations of American slavery. Everyone suffered, and no one won, not even the white wives and children. One of the important themes the author examines is “dehumanization,” and it is brought to life with incredible impact. This is not a novel that can easily be forgotten.
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