Graham despised and still despises Henry.

Her late, much older husband Henry had been Graham's cousin and one-time guardian. Submit Channing-Downes is a virtuous widow, still in mourning, clothed in black - hence the title - for almost the entirety of the book. Lest we forget, those were far more puritanical times. And on top of it, there is a popular newspaper serial that has its root material in the deeds, mistakes, and peccadilloes of his life, all exaggerated and ridiculed for the entertainment of the masses. His current mistress is thinking of divorcing her husband to marry him - a big scandalous deal in 1858. He is the defendant in a false paternity suit. But unlike so many other romance novel bad boys who seem to copulate their way from one end of the country to the other and in doing so, generate nothing but good-willed envy from all men and trembling desire in all women, Graham has troubles. Graham Wessit, the hero of Black Silk, could probably be labeled a bad boy, a Victorian bad boy if you will. It has that indescribable something that can only be called literary 'fat', a quality that makes her particular confection of words deliciously tangible.īut her talent goes far beyond mere linguistic sumptuousness. Her writing has flavor, succulence and substance. Judy Cuevas is a master of sensual description. Pardon the gustatory analogy, which in this case is apt. You cannot believe the evening is over since you wanted it to go on and on and on. Then the dessert which ends your experience with a bang (well, almost literally in this case, if I may be pardoned for a little risqué pun). Then comes the entree and you can hardly comprehend how you came to be in such heaven. And then the appetizers arrive - and then the first course. You wonder a little anxiously whether the rest of what is to come can measure up. A little plate of nibbles arrives, compliment of the chef. You fidget a little in your chair, admire the ambience and the elegant waiters doing their nightly ballet. Reading Black Silk is like going to a five-star restaurant for the first time. I mean, is it possible to admire the Mona Lisa a square inch at a time? Let me state that it is difficult to summarize Black Silk without doing it an injustice, because this book, this story, these characters and their interpersonal relations are so unusual, so remarkable, and so complex that the whole is near nigh irreducible.

Judy cuevas bliss