"The workers opened the passenger-side door and carried out a very elderly Negro woman, who told us she was 109 years old. 'I was born a slave,' she announced. 'It's 'bout time I registered to vote.' ... (T)here were other people in Chattahoochee who wanted to register, including her ninety-year-old daughter, but they were afraid. 'They say if I come back alive, they'll come register too,' she said."

I first came across Tananarive Due in a work I have previously reviewed: "Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora," by Sheree R. Thomas. Having read Due's novels to date, I periodically check the library catalog for anything new, not expecting to find a non-fiction entry. I had no real idea of her biography or her background; I just knew I had found an author I like, who is definitely worthy of more attention than she has yet received.

This work, written in collaboration with her mother, Patricia Stephens Due, is excellent - start to finish. As the parent of several children in the public schools of lily-white Iowa, I see the yearly, compulsory, half-hearted "diversity studies." What this has come to mean is that every September, Martin Luther King, Jr. is beatified; every October, Christopher Columbus is reviled; every January, King is nominated for sainthood; and every February they do Black History Month, at which time it becomes okay to mention Rosa Parks or Harriet Tubman. At the end of it all, you can ask any student, black or white, about Ralph Abernathy, Thurgood Marshall, Medgar Evers, the SCLC generally, or CORE and all you will get is blank stares. They will have no idea who Bull Connor was and may have only a vague sense of recognition at the name of George Wallace. Tallahassee and St. Augustine: blank stares. Birmingham and Selma: nods of vague recognition.

If this book were made required reading in the high school curriculum (or at least anthologized portions of it), maybe a sense of the real struggles would stay alive. Not the struggles of white-against-black, but the struggles of activists (White and Negro)against the establishments (White and Negro), against fear, and against apathy. And, divisions within the movement itself.

Daughter and mother Due quickly brush aside the revisionist histories of a Civil Rights Movement under the omnipresent eyes of Dr. King - a monolithic structure pitting white against black. The reader is constantly reminded that the civil rights movement was really made up of the diverse activities of mostly unsung heroes (White and Negro) who gave of their lives, gave up their livelihoods, and gave their very lives to the cause of freedom. The reader is not allowed to believe that the struggle is over. Nor, is the reader permitted to forget that the issue was not and is not Black versus White; it is an issue of freedom and justice - for all.

Written in a comfortable, narrative style, it is nevertheless a scholarly look at the people and the times. The authors chose to use the the language of the times (thus, this reviewer's use of the word "Negro," dispite the fact that the term has fallen into disfavor among the politically correct). In their successful effort to place the reader in the middle of these turbulent years one gets the sense that these were times we should be proud of - at least for those of us who never accepted segregation and racial prejudice. This book tells the stories of civil rights activists so that the memories will not be lost in the current climate of sanitized political correctness. It is said of the Holocaust, "Never Forget!" It should be said of the civil rights activists, "Always Remember!"

Freedom in the Family by mother-daughter authors, Tananarive Due and Patricia Stephens Due, is an account of their family's involvement in the Civil Rights movement. Told in alternating chapters, the book recounts the contributions of their family, friends and supporters in an autobiographical format. Patricia Due carefully shares her personal family history as foundation for her motivation and attraction toward the principles of racial equality. She drew courage and strength from the examples her parents provided in daily life. She covers the fear, anxiety, blood, sweat, and tears that resulted from numerous sit-in's, freedom rides, marches, and rallies in such detail that I felt I had witnessed them myself. She shares her pain and dedication in heartfelt passages such as the loss of a baby during a voter registration project. Tananarive's viewpoint is that of a daughter living in the post-Civil Rights era. Her story recaps the difficulty of growing up in largely white neighborhoods and schools and of being ostracized by both blacks for being "too white" and whites for being "too black". The details of her struggle and childhood observations of her parent's lives are equally compelling as her mother's.

This novel is a wonderful history lesson that includes details that uncover the fortitude and determination of many unsung heroes. The personal sacrifices (suspension/expulsion from college, permanent physical injury, and death) of "everyday people" for the sake of justice are truly admirable and honorable.

For this reviewer, this book was particularly touching because Patricia goes into great detail about the forming of CORE and other noteworthy events happening at FAMU during the same era when my parents, aunts, and uncles attended. She also mentions events in other small towns in Florida where other members of my family lived, so key passages sparked a lot of memories --resulting in me getting a very personal slant on my family's viewpoints on the struggle while reading this book. This body of work is truly a labor of love and a great accomplishment for the Due family; one can only imagine the countless hours it took to pull it all together. It is an excellent memoir, a beautiful legacy, and a definite keepsake for me!

Reviewed by Phyllis
APOOO BookClub, Nubian Circle Book Club

The Living Blood is an excellent sequel to My Soul to Keep, but also stands up quite well as a solo venture for those who have read none of Ms. Due's prior work. She does a superb job of interweaving the significant details from the first book into Living Blood's story line - so much so that you may want to read My Soul to Keep first to keep from spoiling that experience.

The Living Blood is a fast-paced story with a solid, and well developed plot line. Ms. Due presents characters that you will really care about, and a few whom you will really hate. Unfortunately, she also presents a few you'd like to skip over. More suspenseful than scary, it manages quite a few nail-biting, page-a-minute sections. Ms. Due combines style elements similar to Stephen King's multiple sub-plot development, with Dean Koontz's pacing and character development. Indeed, fans of either novelist will find Living Blood an enjoyable read. However, although she avoids the formulaic feel of some of these horror novelists latter work, she does fall into their trap of too many characters and plot lines.

In total, I felt the novel would have been 5 stars with the omission of a few characters, added only to provide King-like dual climaxes. The ending would have worked better with a more focused treatise of Jessica's fight to save her daughter's soul.

In total, however, this was one of the best books of its genre I've read in years. For someone long since tired of Stephen King's many characters' all thinking at me in italics, or Dean Koontz's evil-in-pursuit-a-month club, The Living Blood is a welcome change. I will certainly be in line for her next work.

One word: Engaging. After the success of her second novel, My Soul To Keep, Tananarive Due fans have been waiting for the continued story of Jessica, her family and Dawit and the Immortals. However, The Living Blood has surpassed all high expectations. First of all, The Living Blood is a self-contained story and one needs not to have read My Soul To Keep to follow the fast paced action and addictive plot line. I read most of this book in one weekend and I feel that others will have the same experience. There is something to be said for good "page turners" and I believe it is an art within itself to keep readers so glued to the page that they miss appointments, bus stops and much needed sleep. The Living Blood takes us on a journey over a massive landscape, touching down on different countries within Africa, Europe and landing within the United States. Ms. Due's narrative descriptions are so powerful that I often felt if I were to look out my own window I would see the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela or the greying skies of a coming tropic storm. The Living Blood takes you to these places through the eyes of several memorable characters. Jessica and her sister's tenacity continue into this novel from the previous, however, we are also introduced to Lucas Shepherd and experience his one-man quest to find a cure for his son's leukemia. Each character is distinct in their system of beliefs and Ms. Due has done a wonderful job in showing what ethical and moral questions might arise if the world were to become aware of the existence of a blood so powerful that it can heal most diseases and even cause immortality. By far one of the most interesting characters is Fana, the first child born of two immortals. Tananarive Due takes us inside the mind of this unprecedented girl as she discovers the full range of her powers over time. Truthfully, I couldn't put this book down until I hit the last page, and even after that I read the book jacket, the notes, and scanned the back cover looking for more!

Tananarive Due is a wonderful author. At every opportunity, I have recommended her books to friends and family. There is one thing that I enjoy in particular about her books, The Living Blood and My Soul To Keep, and that is how Ms. Due's landscape of characters demonstrate the different faces of Americans and the rest of the world. While most of the main characters are African-American there are also prominent Caucasian and African characters, Latino characters, and Italian and Irish characters. All of these people are in roles of doctors, families, soldiers, scholars, lawyers and corporate heads. What is exciting is that while all of these characters interact with one another, the focus of the novel is not the _fact_ that they are interacting. I am so happy to see an author writing books that demonstrate the richness of the world we live in. We are all influenced by one another and Ms. Due's books let that be known through the character's likes/dislikes and experiences. Furthermore, while all of these ethnic and racial groups are interacting, there is little sense of the "other" or outcasts and stereotypes. In fact, the division is not between races but a dichotomy of mortals and immortals, and by the end of The Living Blood even those lines are blurred. Congratulations to Tananarive Due she is a wonderful and innovative author. I wish her much continued success.

I am still shaking after reading this novel. It was more than what I could have ever expected. Jessica Wolde, whom we met in "My Soul to Keep", is trying to come to grips with the death of her daughter, Kira, and the new life that she has to deal with, immortality. The question that continued to come to her mind was "Why?" To make matters more complicated, she gives birth to Bee-Bee or Fana who is able to control the weather, read her mind and enters her dreams. She is scared.

Then there is Lucas, who will do almost anything to save his son. Even if it means leaving his son on his death bed to travel to Bostwana for this unknown cure.

"The Living Blood" will make you hold your breath from beginning to end. It is a story that makes your question your own beliefs of loyalty and humanity. Ms. Due has written another excellant novel. I just hope that there will be a sequal. (be cautious of the Bee cave and wait until you find out who the Mummy-like character really is) Peace and Blessings!

This novel was on my "to read list" for a couple of months before I finally checked it out at the library. I checked it out three times afterward, and finally they said I couldn't check it out! That is when I knew I had to own the book. The story of David/Dawit and Jessica, and the Life Brothers of Lalibela is one of the most compelling stories I have ever read. The characters were so real to me that sometimes I found myself dreaming of them. Tananarive Due is an amazing, gifted writer. It's been a long time since I have read a novel that totally captivated me from the beginning. I get sooo tired of reading the same novels OVER AND OVER again, about people who can't find a man, or people cheating on their mates. The same he/say she say drama that has proliferated black fiction, unfortunately. Here comes Ms. Due, a new voice in speculative fiction, to rescue people like me from boredom! Thank you, thank you! I was there, in Ethiopia and Miami with the characters, all the way! Everyone should read this novel and definitely go see the movie!

My Soul To Keep (MSTK) by Tananarive Due is one of the best books that I've Read in 2000! This book was just awesome and included all of the elements of a good read. MSTK was well written, scripted with a vivid imagination and creativity and included a strong storyline, great character development along with cliff hanging plot twists and turns. I must digress for a moment and admit that I had MSTK on my "To Read List" for two years but was a little reluctant to read it because of the genre. Once I committed myself to reading MSTK, I found myself really getting into this book and the storyline; I ravenously turned the pages and became so all consumed that I didn't want to put the book down. MSTK engrosses you in the tale of David/Dawit the immortal who will do whatever is necessary to maintain his family, the love of his life wife Jessica, and Kira his young daughter. The plot grabbed me from the beginning as Ms. Due had a wonderful way of telling the story and taking one back into time. Once Ms. Due had your attention she took you back periodically to help you understand How Dawit/became David. I felt that I was actually back in the various timeperiods depicted in the book and actually waiting to travel back to present day. Due weaves Past with Present in the telling of MSTK and in doing so she provides the reader with enough background information to keep the reader on the edge of the seat while adding depth and giving substance to the storyline. MSTK keeps the reader fully immersed and satiated until you have finished the last page. There is so much to absorb and enjoy in MSTK that no one can really tell you about it; MSTK is a book that you must experience in order to receive the full scope, the full meaning of the story. I plan to read MSTK again...hopefully a little slower this time so that I can SAVOR AND DIGEST the small details as well this time. Ms. Due combines a fine blend of history, science fiction, and drama to make the story riveting and to hold your interest from beginning to end. I recommend MSTK as an excellent read for everyone and I can't wait for the sequel...I know David/Dawit is still out there and I can't wait to hear what he's been up to since I last read about him.

I'm an avid reader and I enjoy a good science-fiction more than anything else. When I stumbled across this book in 1998, purely by luck, I was not prepared for the ride it took me on. Ms. Due has earned her place among the ranks of Steven King and Spielberg. Since 1998 I've read this book twice -- and I'm not normally a person who reads a book more than once, but this story grabs you, takes you to a another place altogether and you'll never in your life forget the main character, Dawit (or Daud, or David-just one of his many names). This book leaves you hoping that just once this could be true, that there really could be people out there like Dawit and if you're really fortunate, maybe one day you'll meet one. I sincerely hope, as I've been hoping since '98, that Ms. Due will do a sequel. It will be well worth it!

If I hadn't already read several articles and a nonfiction book about Madam Walker before reading The Black Rose, I might have been seduced into believing that Tananarive Due really was telling a mostly accurate story of the life of this extraordinary entrepreneur, philanthropist and political activist who changed the lives of thousands of black women. But even allowing for the fact that Ms. Due has written a fictionalized account, it is inexcusable that her book contains so much misleading information when so much truth is available to the writer who takes the time to do necessary digging. Just to mention a few specific errors in Ms. Due's novel: Madam Walker had five siblings rather than two; she had three husbands rather than two; her first husband was not killed in a race riot; her parents did not die of yellow fever; she did not build a school in Africa; at least two of the main characters-Charlotte and America-exist only in Due's imagination. While Ms. Due claims that she has written a novel "in the spirit of Madam Walker," it seems presumptuous of her to make such a claim since she has so violated the facts of this amazing woman's life. Ultimately inaccurate stories do a disservice to our history and allows others, who are inclined to discount us, to dismiss the truth of our outstanding foremothers.

This is an excellent, fictionalized novel about Sarah Breedlove, later famously known as Madame C.J. Walker; first female millionaire and creator of hair care products for black women.

The author makes good use of research started by the late, great, Alex Haley. Sarah's encounters with famous African-American "movers and shakers" of the period are believable as is the account of her stark, challenging, but rewarding life.

Born two years after the Civil War, the book chronicles Sarah's harsh childhood; her marriage at the tender age of 14, her hard life as a washerwoman and her experiments with various hair-growing formulas until she hits "the jackpot".

The book is very well written, however, because I'm not a Walker expert, I couldn't discern fact from fiction. Because the book's writing style is outstanding, I await anxiously for the true account of Madam Walker's life written by Walker's great-great granddaughter: A'Lelia Perry Bundles. Her biography will be available February 2001 titled: "On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker".

What a wonderful story of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps. Ms. Walker became a philanthropist, and a champion for the cause of her people. She is definitely an inspiration to anyone, but females in particular. I applaud Ms. Due for a job well done.

Mere words cannot justly express the greatness of Tananarive Due's magnificent fictional account of the life of one of Americas greatest rag-to-riches stories: i.e., namely the saga of Sara Breedlove McWilliams Walker, better known as Madam C.J. Walker. A monumental tribute to the concept of self-determination and intestinal fortitude, the story of Madam Walker is inspirational and totally captivating. Miss Due expertly carries the reader from Walker's humble and devastating post-Civil War beginnings through harsh economic and social struggles to world-wide acclaim as the first black female millionaire. Along the way, Madam Walker rubs elbows with the likes of pioneer educators Mary McLeod-Bethune and Booker T. Washington, composer James Weldon Johnson, social activist W.E.B. Dubois, the great opera star Caruso, who is credited with naming Walker's estate, and, to a lesser extent, President Theodore Roosevelt. But, it is not just the famous who are instrumental in the making of this truly outstanding woman. Her parents Owen and Minerva Breedlove, siblings Louvenia and Alex, respective husbands Moses and C.J, as well as trusted friends and employees, and adversaries are all vividly characterized by memorable descriptive passages and lines. Whether or not the events of the novel are romanticized to fir the larger-than-life Walker, the book is one that accomplishes the author's intent: i.e., it elevates an American original to her place of importance as one of this country's "queens" of business and social change.

It is usually pretty easy to differentiate an author's first work from their subsequent works. I read Tananarive Due's My Soul To Keep first and finished The Between months later ... They were equally superb.

The Between is a suspenseful first novel which chronicles the confusing life (death?) of Hilton, a man who, at age 8, nearly drowned but was saved by his grandmother. As an adult he suffers from horrendous nightmares and soon becomes unable to distinguish them from his waking hours. Coupled with having to protect his family from a psychotic, racist, ex-convict who is after his prosecutor wife, Hilton and the reader are tossed into a world of dreams/reality, life/death, sanity/insanity ... death/life.

This was a chilling and thrilling tale. I am usually not one who automatically sees movie potential in a book but I think this one would be a tortuous theme for the silver screen.

I anxiously (and nervously) await another novel by Tananarive Due !!

It is usually pretty easy to differentiate an author's first work from their subsequent works. I read Tananarive Due's My Soul To Keep first and finished The Between months later ... They were equally superb.

The Between is a suspenseful first novel which chronicles the confusing life (death?) of Hilton, a man who, at age 8, nearly drowned but was saved by his grandmother. As an adult he suffers from horrendous nightmares and soon becomes unable to distinguish them from his waking hours. Coupled with having to protect his family from a psychotic, racist, ex-convict who is after his prosecutor wife, Hilton and the reader are tossed into a world of dreams/reality, life/death, sanity/insanity ... death/life.

This was a chilling and thrilling tale. I am usually not one who automatically sees movie potential in a book but I think this one would be a tortuous theme for the silver screen.

It is usually pretty easy to differentiate an author's first work from their subsequent works. I read Tananarive Due's My Soul To Keep first and finished The Between months later ... They were equally superb.

The Between is a suspenseful first novel which chronicles the confusing life (death?) of Hilton, a man who, at age 8, nearly drowned but was saved by his grandmother. As an adult he suffers from horrendous nightmares and soon becomes unable to distinguish them from his waking hours. Coupled with having to protect his family from a psychotic, racist, ex-convict who is after his prosecutor wife, Hilton and the reader are tossed into a world of dreams/reality, life/death, sanity/insanity ... death/life.

This was a chilling and thrilling tale. I am usually not one who automatically sees movie potential in a book but I think this one would be a tortuous theme for the silver screen.

I anxiously (and nervously) await another novel by Tananarive Due !

What a SUCK-FEST! This is the worst book I've read in a long time. The (unlucky) 13 authors seem only slightly concerned with plot continuity, and the result is like a novel with every third page torn out. Characters come and go, and come back again for no apparent reason, other than to satisfy the authors' self-indulgent egos. In particular, the chapters by Elmore Leonard and Vicki Hendricks were appallingly bad. Hendricks ignores all the preceeding chapters and suddenly changes the eponymous manatee from an aquatic pinhead into some amalgam of Lassie and the Hardy Boys. In a later chapter Carl Hiaasen openly mocks this sudden swerve in character. (Tip: avoid books where one co-author ridicules another co-author's writing) Elmore Leonard contributes a time capsule that might have been hip 25 years ago, with a black character refering to someone as a "cat", and in the very next sentence actually using the phase "shuck and jive". I am very happy I checked this book out of the library, instead of squandering 22.95 on this train wreck of a book

OK, thirteen of Miami's favorite writers are sitting around a campfire (this isn't a joke). Dave Barry kicks off a story involving a couple hit men, a manatee, a 102-year-old woman and a box containing the head of Fidel Castro, and passes it to the writer to the left. The next eleven writers circle the story around the campfire in an attempt to blend this motley cast of characters (and heads) into the literary equivalent of a refreshing Miami Beach smoothee.

Throwing in monkey wrenches, stranger characters and even more heads-in-boxes in the process, they mostly succeed in creating a wholly unbelievable, extremely offbeat and wildly entertaining mystery. Poor Carl Hiassen (of Striptease fame) is challenged with tying up all the loose ends without playing the Demi Moore card, and succeeds in delivering an ending as strange as a manatee is large.

Above all an interesting experiment, Naked Came the Manatee is also an entertaining quick read.

Booger is the answer to the walls talking. Suspend belief and enter the world of a manatee that thinks, feels and reasons like us. He becomes involved in a mystery not as a victim, but as a participant in important events. The concept of a manatee detective aiding the likes of Brit Montero in solving the case of the Castro heads is only exceeded by the writing of this by the many different writers, from Dave Barry to Carl Hiaasen. No mystery should be this much fun