Femi & Jessica!
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A young, unassuming couple gets swept into international intrigue by an unscrupulous conglomerate
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| Lecture hall - Cà Foscari University, Venice, where the couple met. |
Black Gold was an interesting read.
Cerebral at times, emotional too, but an accurate portrayal of life at all
times! Themes that held me throughout the
novel were:
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| Jessica Rhodes & Femi Adeola |
The interracial marriage—the joy of being free to choose,
the pain of the disruption of relationships, of outgrowing one’s family, and of
missing loved ones who no longer understand who you have become. The
pain of knowing you cannot go back, that “Home” is no longer your home.
The unsettling environment of “the first ‘real job,’”
of being easy prey for the pawn movers, and knowing there is little you can do
to protect or defend yourself.
The plot centers around how two brilliant but
impulsive university students find each other from opposite sides of the globe,
and how these naive “babes in the woods” navigate the treacherous waters of the
corporate world while keeping their relationship intact. The pacing of the storyline fits
with the topic—no slow slogging parts!
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| A waterfront view of Lagos where the blackmail scene is set |
The characters—Kudos to the author, the characters walk off the
page, from Femi and Jessica to the cigar-puffing
corporate CEO, and the confused parents who grieved, watching their son walk
away with his foreign bride.
The writing—I find the writing excellent. Sam is
able to draw word pictures that make a reader “see” the image the author has in
his mind. Although the reader might sometimes feel distanced from the action on
the page, almost as if he were in the narrator’s head, now and then the author drops
the reader right in the center of the emotion of the characters. For example,
the scene depicting Femi’s shock when he realized the job he had was not the one
he had signed up for—the moment he became
aware of his precarious situation, the sudden realization of how unscrupulous his
boss was, and how he could do nothing to stop the train he was on. That scene
was palpable! The editing was also excellent—no typo distractions or grammar confusions.
I appreciate a clean read.
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| Reviewed by Carol A. Brown Retired Educator | Midwest USA |
Movie Book Trailer - Black Gold
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| Rosie Amber Roses are Amber Book Club |
“I like the trouble this
interracial marriage caused when the couple met Femi’s parents and I enjoy the scenes
set in Italy; the author’s knowledge of the country make them believable. He
also puts his poetic ability to good use and there are lots of examples of this
in the descriptive sections.”
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| Venice - Home of Cà Foscari University |
“Black Gold is
chock-full of lyrical imagery and metaphors. Frequently, the result is
beautiful.”
- J.W. George | Author
“The
language is flowery and evocative. Every scene, every setting, every action,
every emotion, is described in luxurious detail, with perhaps more similes than
I’ve ever encountered in a single novel.”
– Dave Saari | Retired Aerospace Engineer
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| Augustine Sam - Journalist | Author | Poet |
“Literature must be relevant to its
times. It must be both timely and timeless. It must resonate with the people
and the period in which it is set, and contribute to the discourse, political
or otherwise, as well as put events in their proper historical and social
contexts. It is my belief that fiction,
used properly, can be a very effective vehicle for expounding on real-life
issues. And they don't necessarily have to be politically correct.”
