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If Crows Could Talk
George Tucker and April Jefferson have never met but they share a secret.
Born the same day fifty years apart, in the same town in Florida, both are battling demons. George is African-American – now living in Atlanta, having run from Jim Crow – only it seems you can't outrun the past. April is a white teenager terrified she will end up like her mother.
George’s story is set over fifty years, April’s over a single year… yet their destinies are tied up together. They must meet… but how is the troubled teenager April the key to unlocking the secrets of George’s past?
Find out in the gripping If Crows Could Talk by award-winning literary writer Debz Hobbs-Wyatt.
Born the same day fifty years apart, in the same town in Florida, both are battling demons. George is African-American – now living in Atlanta, having run from Jim Crow – only it seems you can't outrun the past. April is a white teenager terrified she will end up like her mother.
George’s story is set over fifty years, April’s over a single year… yet their destinies are tied up together. They must meet… but how is the troubled teenager April the key to unlocking the secrets of George’s past?
Find out in the gripping If Crows Could Talk by award-winning literary writer Debz Hobbs-Wyatt.
357 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 20, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 25, 2024
I sometimes look at the best sellers lists in bookstores, in papers and magazines. I see the latest celebrity to commit the minutiae of their life to paper, the author who already has an impressive oeuvre of best-selling work, the personality turned novelist selling books by the bucketful, the latest film/TV ties in. Then I look at the book I’m holding in my hand, and I ask – why? Why isn’t this book on those lists? It’s every bit as good if not better than some appearing there. And then I understand that publishing is a funny old business these days. Quality doesn’t always equate with sales and success.
On paper this book sounds like an anomaly – an Essex lass from Canvey Island writes a novel about America and civil rights? Yet it is so good on so many levels that it is easily one of my favourite books this year.
Debz Hobbs-Wyatt is an award-winning writer for her short stories. So unsurprisingly, it's very well written. There’s an intriguing premise; the two main characters both share the same birthday, but they were born fifty years apart in the same town. George’s story is set over fifty years, April’s over a single year. The narrative yoyos between the two protagonists who initially seem to have nothing in common aside from their birthplace and birthdate. But as the story unfolds the astute reader can pick up the signs that there has to be some kind of link between the two. It’s so cleverly done it blew me away as I started to make the connections.
I think this is the best example I’ve come across of the leitmotiv technique in a contemporary novel. It’s used so simply, yet so subtly - here it’s an utter delight to experience.
The story is an immersive one and you could be forgiven for believing it to be written by an American author with roots in the South. It is so authentic. The research is impeccable from the USA school system to the rules of baseball! The dialogue so convincing it envelops you from the start and transports to you to Georgia and Florida. The atmosphere of those times for African Americans is palpable. The politics are there but it is not an overtly political novel, more a sociological one.
George is just such a wonderful character. He has his flaws, but it makes him so real. A man of dignity but hurting so much inside. Troubled teen, April, will tug at your heart. The amateur psychologist in you will try to diagnose but the truth will not be revealed until you near the conclusion of the book. All the characters have their roles to play and they do so very well. I loved Lydia, and I understand she features as a character in a previous novel which I’m keen to get my hands on! Molly is a beautiful character with her perception and understanding.
The denouement is heartbreaking and will perhaps remind you of similar events that have occurred in various places over time. Once understanding has been reached all the strands of this spider web tale are drawn together. I suppose if I’m honest I found the last few pages lacked the impact of the bulk of the book, I saw them as an attempt to tie all the ends up neatly and that goal was achieved with compassion and hope.
For inasmuch as some of the events in this book are shocking and upsetting there is redemption. It’s a multi themed book – racism, bigotry as one might expect from a civil rights story but there’s family and friendship and spiritualism and faith and hope and love abide and the greatest of these is love.
But what of the crows, I hear you ask? Oh no, I’m not going to say. Best you read the book. 😉
On paper this book sounds like an anomaly – an Essex lass from Canvey Island writes a novel about America and civil rights? Yet it is so good on so many levels that it is easily one of my favourite books this year.
Debz Hobbs-Wyatt is an award-winning writer for her short stories. So unsurprisingly, it's very well written. There’s an intriguing premise; the two main characters both share the same birthday, but they were born fifty years apart in the same town. George’s story is set over fifty years, April’s over a single year. The narrative yoyos between the two protagonists who initially seem to have nothing in common aside from their birthplace and birthdate. But as the story unfolds the astute reader can pick up the signs that there has to be some kind of link between the two. It’s so cleverly done it blew me away as I started to make the connections.
I think this is the best example I’ve come across of the leitmotiv technique in a contemporary novel. It’s used so simply, yet so subtly - here it’s an utter delight to experience.
The story is an immersive one and you could be forgiven for believing it to be written by an American author with roots in the South. It is so authentic. The research is impeccable from the USA school system to the rules of baseball! The dialogue so convincing it envelops you from the start and transports to you to Georgia and Florida. The atmosphere of those times for African Americans is palpable. The politics are there but it is not an overtly political novel, more a sociological one.
George is just such a wonderful character. He has his flaws, but it makes him so real. A man of dignity but hurting so much inside. Troubled teen, April, will tug at your heart. The amateur psychologist in you will try to diagnose but the truth will not be revealed until you near the conclusion of the book. All the characters have their roles to play and they do so very well. I loved Lydia, and I understand she features as a character in a previous novel which I’m keen to get my hands on! Molly is a beautiful character with her perception and understanding.
The denouement is heartbreaking and will perhaps remind you of similar events that have occurred in various places over time. Once understanding has been reached all the strands of this spider web tale are drawn together. I suppose if I’m honest I found the last few pages lacked the impact of the bulk of the book, I saw them as an attempt to tie all the ends up neatly and that goal was achieved with compassion and hope.
For inasmuch as some of the events in this book are shocking and upsetting there is redemption. It’s a multi themed book – racism, bigotry as one might expect from a civil rights story but there’s family and friendship and spiritualism and faith and hope and love abide and the greatest of these is love.
But what of the crows, I hear you ask? Oh no, I’m not going to say. Best you read the book. 😉
October 24, 2024
Still dreaming
When I first read the synopsis of this book I did not think that it was for me. I doubt I would have picked it up in a store but it was recommended to me by someone whose book choices are normally very similar to my own so I decided to throw caution to the wind.
I wondered how the author would merge George over a 50 year period with April, a15-year-old girl, over a one year period.
As the book begins, George is thinking about the first few lines of a poem he had read written by Langston Hughes in 1941.
“ I dream a world where man
No, other man will scorn…”
My head immediately opened the box. I keep for a little bit of poetry that means something to me.
“ It’s coming yet, for a’ that, that man-to-man the world o’er
Shall brothers be for a’ that”
Robert Burns 1795
From then on the book did not leave my hands. The author knows how to use her words to effect , some of her sayings I am sure will find their way into my own own dictionary. I like that neither Georgia nor April had the sociables because neither have I and there are times when I have definitely had the trembly tremblies. And I know all about getting the anxieties.
The book is set in the southern states of America. I recognised much from my own reading of history books (it certainly wasn’t taught in Scottish schools and probably isn’t taught to any extent in American schools.)
George’s normal daily life was cut short on his 15th birthday but there is no good explanation as to why.
April is a tortured soul still having imaginary friends who arrived when she was three years old but now her schoolwork and attendance have deteriorated and people are beginning to think there may be a mental health explanation for this.
She lives with her grandparents but again there is no real explanation as to why this is the case although we do know that her mother is dead.
Ultimately, the school system decides it cannot help her and is ready to spew her out to the land of psychiatrists asylums and peace by pharmaceuticals. April is adamant that she is not mad she is not like her mother but who listens to the disruptive teenager?
Except there is a fairy godmother in the shape of her class teacher and she has a husband with lots of memory boxes. He opens one and I held my breath while he explained what he found. Then listened to the tick of a big clock running down towards April‘s appointment with the psychiatrist. Would the answers come in time and would they be enough?
Finally George and April meet I would like to say “ and they all lived happily ever after”, but this is not a fairytale.
Now I am recommending that you all go out and read this remarkable book .
When I first read the synopsis of this book I did not think that it was for me. I doubt I would have picked it up in a store but it was recommended to me by someone whose book choices are normally very similar to my own so I decided to throw caution to the wind.
I wondered how the author would merge George over a 50 year period with April, a15-year-old girl, over a one year period.
As the book begins, George is thinking about the first few lines of a poem he had read written by Langston Hughes in 1941.
“ I dream a world where man
No, other man will scorn…”
My head immediately opened the box. I keep for a little bit of poetry that means something to me.
“ It’s coming yet, for a’ that, that man-to-man the world o’er
Shall brothers be for a’ that”
Robert Burns 1795
From then on the book did not leave my hands. The author knows how to use her words to effect , some of her sayings I am sure will find their way into my own own dictionary. I like that neither Georgia nor April had the sociables because neither have I and there are times when I have definitely had the trembly tremblies. And I know all about getting the anxieties.
The book is set in the southern states of America. I recognised much from my own reading of history books (it certainly wasn’t taught in Scottish schools and probably isn’t taught to any extent in American schools.)
George’s normal daily life was cut short on his 15th birthday but there is no good explanation as to why.
April is a tortured soul still having imaginary friends who arrived when she was three years old but now her schoolwork and attendance have deteriorated and people are beginning to think there may be a mental health explanation for this.
She lives with her grandparents but again there is no real explanation as to why this is the case although we do know that her mother is dead.
Ultimately, the school system decides it cannot help her and is ready to spew her out to the land of psychiatrists asylums and peace by pharmaceuticals. April is adamant that she is not mad she is not like her mother but who listens to the disruptive teenager?
Except there is a fairy godmother in the shape of her class teacher and she has a husband with lots of memory boxes. He opens one and I held my breath while he explained what he found. Then listened to the tick of a big clock running down towards April‘s appointment with the psychiatrist. Would the answers come in time and would they be enough?
Finally George and April meet I would like to say “ and they all lived happily ever after”, but this is not a fairytale.
Now I am recommending that you all go out and read this remarkable book .
October 11, 2024
Confession time first. I've been involved in the editing of this book and I've also seen a very early incarnation of the story. However, I still have to say how much I love it!
It's a great story.
The characters are so believable. You can't help but love George, April, Molly and Ruby May. Lydia make a guest appearance. She has been in a previous novel. She has a small but very significant role here. The characters are all complex and none without their faults. But that just makes them more human.
Where does this book belong on the bookshelf? That's a diffiuclt one! It may just be best to say it's a literary one. There is a very strong voice.
It's not necessarily an easy read, partly because of some of the content and partly because of that strong voice. But well worth the effort. It will engage you I promise.
It's a great story.
The characters are so believable. You can't help but love George, April, Molly and Ruby May. Lydia make a guest appearance. She has been in a previous novel. She has a small but very significant role here. The characters are all complex and none without their faults. But that just makes them more human.
Where does this book belong on the bookshelf? That's a diffiuclt one! It may just be best to say it's a literary one. There is a very strong voice.
It's not necessarily an easy read, partly because of some of the content and partly because of that strong voice. But well worth the effort. It will engage you I promise.
November 5, 2024
Powerful, intriguing, and emotionally involving
The characters within this books, their secrets, their friends seem real and present. It is not only a book about the need for racial justice but also the power of individuals to support, find positive solutions and care for each other. I didn't want to finish the book but the ending too is quite a finale. Yes, the character Lydia from While No One is Watching also gives a wise and healing perspective. Although there is trauma the book shows strength, compassion and the hope to overcome adversity.
The characters within this books, their secrets, their friends seem real and present. It is not only a book about the need for racial justice but also the power of individuals to support, find positive solutions and care for each other. I didn't want to finish the book but the ending too is quite a finale. Yes, the character Lydia from While No One is Watching also gives a wise and healing perspective. Although there is trauma the book shows strength, compassion and the hope to overcome adversity.
September 21, 2024
Interesting premise but flipping back and forth between two characters in different times was challenging in terms of following the two story lines. I thought at first it might be doable, but in the end, I didn't enjoy having to do so. At the last, I found myself slogging through two text, being swallowed by the relentless mud of the two narratives. On the other hand, the writer is skilled, but just couldn't bring it off.
December 23, 2024
This book... 🤯
George, a Black teenager raised during Jim Crow, turns 15 in 1953. April, a white teenager raised well after Jim Crow, turns 15 in 2003. They are nothing alike, but they share a secret...
I am blown away by the story & how well-written it was. I ate this book up.
The secret blew my mind.
Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced reader's copy. I am so grateful.
George, a Black teenager raised during Jim Crow, turns 15 in 1953. April, a white teenager raised well after Jim Crow, turns 15 in 2003. They are nothing alike, but they share a secret...
I am blown away by the story & how well-written it was. I ate this book up.
The secret blew my mind.
Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced reader's copy. I am so grateful.
February 25, 2025
Having finished this book I'm now wondering whether it was just too clever for me. I struggled with it until the last quarter of the book, I found it difficult to follow, I couldn't relate to the characters, and it didn't draw me in. However the last quarter of the book was quite a revelation and I now feel it was a great story and maybe I just didn't get the style of writing.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews