Dominion

by Addie E. Citchens, Angel Pean (Narrator), Bahni Turpin (Narrator)

The sins of a favorite son rock a small Mississippi town in this taut Southern family drama.

Reverend Sabre Winfrey, shepherd of the Seven Seals Baptist Church, believes in God, his own privilege, and enterprise. Besides the barbershop and radio station he owns, he has an iron hand on every aspect of Dominion, Mississippi, society. He and his wife, Priscilla, have five boys; the youngest, Emanuel, is called Wonderboy—no one sings prettier, runs as fast, or turns as many heads. After a surprising encounter with a stranger, Wonderboy finds himself confronted by questions he’d never imagined, and his response will send shock waves through the entire community. Told from the point of view of the women who love these two men, Dominion illustrates how we enable the everyday violence and casual sins of the patriarchy.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Audiobook, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Family, Religion

7 pages, Audiobook

First published August 19, 2025

Reviews

[Roxane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew. This is one hell of a novel. In Dominion, people’s secrets are largely out in the open. Priscilla, the First Lady of the Seven Seals Missionary Baptist Church has long looked the other way from her husband, the Reverend Sabre Winfrey Jr.’s indiscretions but to do so she has turned to vices that help her grit her way through it. She has raised her five sons into young men and the Winfrey family enjoys the privileges of a well-to-do family. Diamond is a girl who has known more hurt than most, her family broken in all kinds of ways, but Maggie has taken the girl in and mothered her where Diamond’s own mother couldn’t. I share all this to say that this novel is about two women who see what they want to see, especially concerning Emanuel Winfrey aka Wonderboy, until they no longer can. There is a satisfying density to the storytelling which is layered and beautiful and ugly at the same time. Beneath the story there is the other story about small communities and secrets and powers and how feeling like you have to live up to unspoken expectations can destroy you and everyone around you from the inside out. As the tension builds and we start to see more of who Wonderboy really is, as his mother must face who her child is, this novel will grab you in the gut and hold you there. It’s absolutely outstanding. It captures church community and the South and the gulf between the haves and have nots with precision and keen observations. Once I entered this world I didn’t want to leave.

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

a family drama, a unique perspective, a searing story, THAT COVER...many reasons i needed to read this.

https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...

fittingly there were times when this was doing a bit too much, but mostly there was so much i liked about it.

i liked the unique structure and i liked the connection between the title and the plot and the themes and i liked the writing style.

i think this could have done more with less, but overall...

bottom line: count me impressed.

(thanks to the publisher for the copy)

[Traci Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thrilling debut. It starts off witty and effortless, an easy portrait of a church and its people, and then slowly the ground shifts under our feet and the whole book has flipped before you ever really notice. I don’t want to say too much, but it really works. Citchens nails the alternating narrators and their voices. She taps into the ways desires, loyalties, and power dynamics are ever shifting, even imperceptibly so. She has a gift for evoking a whole person with one quick off-handed observation or bit of dialogue. The commentary on masculinity, hypocrisy, and the barriers to accountability are great. My favorite fiction of 2025 so far

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was gooood.

It really showed the representation of how black family's rather cover up sick shit just to protect their reputation within their community than do what's right. That damn WONDERBOY.

This was deeply rooted in how the south is full of secrets. So many things rather be overlooked than talked about within black southern families and the belief that we can just "PRAY OUT THE DEVIL" instead of addressing that something is actually wrong and it ain't no "SPIRITS"

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dominion did a great job exploring how patriarchy negatively affects relationships. Lots of poignant commentary on how shame, self-judgment, and violence become related to sex and how intimate relationships are negatively distorted when men’s needs and desires are always centered. I found the structure of this novel a bit confusing; the multiple perspectives never quite gelled for me and wish we could have stuck with one or two characters in a more developed and linear way. Still, I recognize the importance of the messages in Dominion especially in relation to gender relations and dynamics.

[Carl (Hiatus. IBB in Jan) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dominion is Addie E. Citchens’ flammable debut novel, written under the writer’s fellowship from Farrar, Straus and Giroux, awarded to new and exciting voices. Set in the small town of Dominion, Mississippi, the novel follows a wealthy Black Baptist family torn between devotion and destruction. Citchens crafts an intimate portrayal of how the patriarchy moulds and folds everyone under its crushing doctrine and alienation in this propulsive story.

The story opens with a secular history of the Seven Seals Baptist Church, and through alternating points of view — mainly Priscilla, the First Lady, and Diamond, a troubled orphan — we piece together the complex dynamics of the Winfrey family. Reverend Sabre Winfrey Jr., beloved minister, father of four and Wonderboy, is largely voiced only through his typewritten sermons (blocking access between reader and pastor). Priscilla is the archetypal Southern Belle, with a crooked hip, numbing her discontent with Jack Daniels first and pills second as their marriage cookie-crumbles. Diamond copes differently, rolling joints in search of an escape that evaporates at each puff. Wonderboy, the prodigal son, is charming, athletic, complex, and the devil incarnate is confronted with his ambiguous nature and his incapacity to handle his life.

The structure of the novel is interesting, with each chapter opening with a sermon that echoes, questions, or deepens the narrative. Themes of violence, drug abuse, sex, suicide, gender roles, systemic racism and identity recur throughout the story, handled with both nuance and raw intensity. The narrative alternates between Priscilla and Diamond, infrequently injected with unknown narrators who offer a grittier viewpoint. As the story progresses, the reader is introduced to the family and town dynamics. Citchens refrains from overly describing graphic violence, inviting the reader to feel its weight without sensationalism, focusing instead on the psychological and emotional toll it takes on the characters. Much is left for the reader to interpret and notice, although Citchens provides the necessary tools.

Citchens’ competent characterisation creates a multidimensional and relatable cast without dictating reasons for them to be who they are. Her prose is vivid, with true-to-life dialogue full of personality and wit. Dominion is a compelling read, with strong character development and a plot I can recommend to most readers. The use of cultural dialect rooted in Black Southern identity, enriches the reading experience, without alienating the non-Black or non-American reader. Although I can appreciate the amount of story contained inside in only 240 pages, I wished Citchens had explored Rev and his influence more.

Ultimately, Dominion is a searing exploration of how unmet expectations, societal conventions, and the suppression of self can fracture individuals and families. It is a thought-provoking novel I would recommend to many readers interested in multilayered narratives rooted in Black American culture, the crushing power of patriarchy, and fiery individual rebellion.

Rating: 4.5/5
Recommended

Thank you, Addie E. Citchens and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this digital galley via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot to recommend this novel, especially in terms of voice and setting. I hope we see more from Citchens. It wasn't until nearly the end of this novel that I understood what it was, and I wonder if I would feel differently about it if I'd gone in knowing that. This is unusual for me! I usually prefer to go in cold and have a book teach me what it is, but actually I think it could have been very interesting to start this book knowing where we were heading.

Priscilla and Diamond are two women at odds. They are pitted against each other because of their feelings for Emanuel. Priscilla, his mother, is also wife to the reverend of this small Southern town's big church. Priscilla has to be a certain kind of person, she has failed more than once, and she's struggling to keep it together when so many of her sins have been in the public eye. Diamond is a teenager who loves Emanuel and sees no one and nothing but him; he is her life, her focus, the only force she knows. Priscilla and Diamond want different futures for Emanuel. They also don't know him at all.

Because, really, these two women are not enemies. The enemy is the system they live under. The small town patriarchy that is practically a monarchy, where Emanuel and his father can do as they please but where the women are entirely under their thumb and in their sway. And what this novel is about is how these two very different women gradually figure out how to escape.

It's a dark novel, with violence and sexual assault, with characters who are deeply desperate. It's Citchens' voices for these women that kept me turning page after page, they feel fully formed and real.

What I struggled with was how little I cared for these men at the center of the story. Even though Citchens presents a believable world where they are the center of not just the story but this town, I disliked them so much and saw so few redeeming virtues in them that it was hard to get through so much of the story where they are the only thing that matters to these women. I would have liked to see more of how Priscilla and Diamond change on the page, and less of Emanuel and his father.

[Zea · Rating 2 out of 5]

there’s some good writing here, but by and large this novel is sloppily constructed and full of troublingly simplistic implications about character psychology and motivation. we’re simply supposed to believe that this kid is a serial rapist and murderer and irredeemable monster because he’s gay and his dad beat him one time? or is the gayness because of the beating too? and diamond is blindly and sycophantically in love with him because she had a tough childhood, which caused her brain to melt out the hole in her heart her mama left behind? are you serious? is that really all you have to say about the complexities and mysteries of the human spirit? reductive, schematic, and just lazy

*arc provided by netgalley*

[Gabriella · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m overjoyed to report that people were NOT lying about this one!!! Addie E. Citchens is a generational talent, and her phenomenal debut is exactly why my friend Michaela says that people shouldn’t be allowed to get book deals before the age of 35. This story has simmered and stewed until it’s falling off the bone!!! What a refreshing, rare joy it is to have a novel live up to its hype. Addie E. Citchens talked a big game in her Stacks Podcast episode, from putting her work in conversation with Morrison to noting her pride on cadence and sentence structure. I actually think she is more in conversation with Gloria Naylor (more on this later), but there is no denying that this is one of those books that we’re going to refer to as a standard for other literature. And then on a sentence level, the characters’ poetic turns of phrase, comedic timing, and “complimensults” are just delicious. She did exactly what she said she would, and we as readers are all the better for it!!!

⛪👪🧨 The pressure cookers of patriarchy and upward mobility
As much as I wanted to tug Diamond by the ear this entire story, she actually nails the crux of what’s going wrong here: “People rarely just snap and do crazy shit. What looked like a snap to other people was actually an erosion of the surfaces that we built up for protection, and unfortunately people would rather dwell on the snap than the wearing.” (163)

The Winfreys are a brand of first family that will be recognizable to any Black Southerner, particularly my fellow preacher’s kids (PKs). When these families say “to whom much is given, much is required”, they mean what’s required is the continuation of “legacy” through certain status and wealth markers. Of course, men are the only ones able to carry on the legacy—their success is the true pinnacle of achievement. It’s one thing for a Black well-off family to get their daughters through college, but the *real* marker of parental distinction is how the boys turn out. I wrote a bit about this in my review of, a 2025 novel that did NOT live up to the hype, but Black upward mobility is a Sisyphean project that is nearly impossible to reproduce across generations, particularly for Black men. So of course, these unachievable metrics of success create pressure that has to be released somewhere, usually through terrible “snaps.” Dominion shows us that when certain men snap, it becomes EVERYBODY’s problem.

I’m getting on a slight detour, because the interesting thing about Dominion is that we see Wonderboy at his high school peak, before he’s even stepped onto (or gotten kicked out of) a college campus. Citchens draws our focus to how no matter the end, the Winfrey family structure is set up to disincentivize the effort of accountability. It gets to the point where the sin in these sorts of families is not the father/brother’s harm of others, but someone “harming” them by bringing their deeds to light. (I am halfway through The Failures of Forgiveness by Myisha Cherry, and so far would certainly recommend as she is tearing this sort of logic apart.) First Lady’s musings on this group project of concealment is right on the money: “Was the kind of woman who made her boy accountable better and braver than me? Naw…it would definitely be easier to sweep his transgressions under the rug than allow ours to be brought to light.” (145)

🏆Black Southern cultures of concealment, or how our men became the prize
I first learned about the concept of “cultures of concealment” in Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland. While you might think the North of Ireland and the Mississippi Delta have nothing in common, many ethnic groups have similar approaches to protecting successful men. This culture of concealment extends beyond the individual family, to the entire community. I can’t tell you how many times I have been encouraged to prop up a grown man in a professional, academic, or even political context simply because we need support the Black men who are doing “the right thing.” Tayari Jones talked about this in her interviews for An American Marriage, and I’m sure if I went through a reread of that, I would definitely find an exact quote about that in Roy’s princess treatment.

But even without the exact quote, we can see us treating men as the prize in the fact that NO MATTER HOW DOWN BAD a man might be, there’s always a woman willing to be by his side. In Dominion, everyone from Joker/Tyrone to Wonderboy to Pastor Winfrey has some lad(ies) condoning his BS! The fact that even as a teenage girl, Diamond already has internalized a sense of responsibility to keep Wonder’s secrets and defend his honor?!?!?! It’s exactly as First Lady says, we are teaching these girls to follow such a dark script: “You courted me knowing good and well you didn’t want a wife, you wanted a worshipper. My bad, you wanted worshippers.” (162)

I’m excited for more of my friends to read this book, because I think there’s no better illustration of exactly why so many of us are lesbians and/or trans. The sole function of women in this family, in my family, is subjugation to men and cleaning up your male relatives’ misdeeds. I know so many people trying to get away from those gender-defined roles BY ANY MEANS, because it is quite literally killing us!!! I appreciate Addie E. Citchens for showing the stakes in such stark relief—sometimes we need that level of clarity.

🎶Fiction in the space between: Tracy Chapman, DéLana R.A. Dameron, Addie E. Citchens, and the gift of precision
Now, to talk about why Dominion is a TOP READ OF 2025, I want to quote DéLana R. A. Dameron, the author of my other favorite Black Southern novel of 2025:

I watch a lot of narrative dramas, and I don’t see what I’m doing as very different: taking real people, a real timeline, and to quote Tracy Chapman, filling in “the fiction in the space between.” Yes, the characters are very close to people in my family and my neighborhoods where I grew up…I’m interested in telling a truthful story about ordinary Black Southern folks in a very specific time frame (the ’90s) in a very specific place (Columbia, South Carolina).

This, readers, is ALL I EVER ASK FROM MY AUTHORS. We are in a time when everybody wants to write about Black Southerners, but no one wants to focus on what Dipo Faloyin calls “extraordinary stories of the remarkably ordinary.” Everyone wants to write a middling Queen Sugar derivative about white-passing Creole people or magical Gullah farmers, when what we really need is for people to get serious about capturing the ACTUAL Southern places where their people are from!!! That is what I want…fiction based in things you can touch, understand, and feel. So yeah, whether it’s Tracy Chapman’s crisp and critical storytelling, DéLana R. A. Dameron’s insistent, reverent use of the Carolinian “won’t”, or Addie E. Citchens’ lush placemaking, I will never tire of artists who are committed to rigorously capturing their everyday worlds.

Let’s talk about that placemaking a bit, so I can get to my Gloria Naylor comparisons!!! In her Stacks episode, Citchens states that Dominion is most in conversation with Sula, but it moreso made me think of Linden Hills and The Women of Brewster Place, books *EYE* enjoyed more than Sula. Here are some of my favorite place quotes:

“The Winfreys lived up on Ashton Court, the grandest street on Coon Hill, with all the rest of the fancy Black folk. It was proper from the outside, so proper I didn’t want to go in, especially not sneak in there.” (21)

“You be careful, hear? The only difference between the niggas in Coon Hill and the ones in the White House is money, so that makes them way more dangerous.” (78)

Like with Naylor’s larger universe, Citchens is setting the stage for some really fascinating fictional geographies—I would love to see future novels from her flesh these settings out even more. This is one thing I ADORED about Redwood Court, like you can tell that DéLana R. A. Dameron wanted her readers to smell every blade of grass in her grandparents’ yard. I think Dominion’s focus is more cerebral—Addie E. Citchens wants each hair on her reader’s arm to stand up one-by-one as she unveils the monstrous behavior this town is condoning. There’s also a difference in how they approach their novels’ time periods (late 90s/early 2000s.) Dameron has noted that she considers Redwood Court to be historical fiction, and thus has a time capsule-esque treatment that lends itself to microscopic attention to place. Meanwhile, Addie E. Citchens adopts the immersive, contemporary feel of Naylor’s Linden Hills/Brewster Place/Bailey’s Café universe—it’s a specific setting, sure, but it also could tell you some things about any time. Either way, I am obsessed with both books—and I can’t wait for more of them.

💭 Final Thoughts
This has been soooooo long, and I didn’t even talk about the other themes I really appreciated (chronic pain and addiction, disability and desirability, the failures of the “protector” and “provider” tropes.) If you couldn’t tell from the patriarchy section, this book is not one that passes the Bechdel test with flying colors, so just buckle in for that. First Lady’s fourth-quarter rebrand also calls to mind the maternal hypocrisy in How to Say Babylon. Let’s just say that when you’ve aided and enabled and exacerbated the worst of your husbands and sons for DECADES, I have a hard time buying the immediate pivot. I don’t think Addie E. Citchens is framing this character as innocent, but if your mom has pulled similar revisionist histories post-divorce, just tread lightly as it’s going to be triggering!

Finally, I just could have read 500 more pages of this book!!! I wanted to see more of the actual lessons Wonderboy gleaned from his brothers and father, not just his friends and general influences. Like what was going on in the glorified frat house, as Citchens calls it? I know those older boys had some dirt, too…how did that set the scene for what came next? Also, what did people believe at the end of the day about what happened? I wanted a bit more time or ability to unpack all of this information…not having it crammed into an epilogue. This could have gone on and on and I would’ve been SEATED. Finally, I don’t love the final message/advice to one final character, which is basically that their freedom will come from getting the fuck out of Mississippi. I get WHY that’s a narrative—it’s certainly what was sold to me coming up! But again, this is just such a rich story for that to be the conclusion.

Okay, glad I got to gush about all this!!! Everybody in the world should read this book immediately, it’s fantastic.

[Tammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars. A superb, multi-layered debut you won’t want to miss. Set in Dominion, Mississippi, the book tells the story of a patriarchal pastor, his wife and family of five sons, specifically his youngest Emanuel, called Manny, or “Wonderboy” - and wonderful he is not. Told in the POV’s of the mother Priscilla, and Diamond-a girl Wonderboy is involved with.. it is a funny, heartbreaking.. still can’t believe it’s a DEBUT! family drama (and so much more!) that explores faith, identity, power, secrets, and truth. Once I started reading I couldn’t stop. Loved this. — Pub. 9/9/25

[CJ Alberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amen!!!!!!!

[Cheryl Carey · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a lover of historical fiction especially late U.S. historical fiction I was excited to read this piece that primarily takes place in the 1990's.

The character development especially of the females who's stories were key to the novel were well written and developed.

It was interesting watching the inner workings of this Southern Baptist church and how the town of Dominion was intertwined with it.  Also it wasn't so surprising that the preacher set himself up to be a beacon of God's word while having sexual romps all over town despite having a beautiful and supportive wife.

Of course his behavior does not set a good example for his five sons.  What kind of stamp he leaves on his boys is something I cannot share without spoiling the plot for you.

This was a short and quick read of 240 pages which I read in a day's time.

It was interesting to take a peak into the structure and hierarchy of the church and how it effected the town of Dominion.

Thank you to Addie E. Citchens and her publisher Farrar, Strauss and Giroux for allowing me to be an advance reader of this novel.  As always, thank you to NetGalley for facilitating the advance reading of so many novels and books.

[ritareadthat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a story about religion. Or more accurately, this is a story about religion that's not a story about religion...

Hold on a sec, that was a false start...

(Insert record scratch sound effect here.)

Words circle around inside, wafting through the air as dandelion pappi, passing each other untouched, refusing to coalesce into sentences. I see them dancing across my vision...

Faith
Morality
Female Agency
Patriarchy
Mother
Husband
Son
Lover
Hypocrisy
Sacrifice
Devotion
Class
Race
Love
Strength

Bear with me for a moment; let me just stand on my tiptoes...those are some extremely heavy words floating around up there; let me catch all of them (gotta catch 'em all)....

Ahha. I've got you all; come to me and behave. Let's attempt to congregate into a semblance of sense.

Whew. I won't deny I struggled to gather my thoughts on this book, simply because there was SO MUCH packed into it that demanded attention. It's really these quiet and unassuming books that just knock you for a wallop the more you ruminate on them.

The backdrop is the 1980s in Dominion, Mississippi. Our narrators are two women: Priscilla Winfrey, wife to Reverend Sabre Winfrey (pastor at a local Baptist church and owner of several local businesses) as well as mother to 5 boys (young adult/older teen)—and Diamond, the teenager who is in love with Wonderboy, the youngest of the Winfrey offspring.

We are taken on a rollercoaster ride, complete with whiplash, through the histories and class differences between these two women: Priscilla's priority is holding together her prestigious family and her diminishing relationship with Sabre; Diamond's childhood of poverty overshadows her stability in the present, as she tries to keep Playboy-Superstar-Athlete Wonderboy to herself. Add to this mix unexpected violence threaded throughout, ambiguous initially—but with the perpetrator ultimately named—and we come to understand what women will endure, the risks they will take, and the choices they will make—all for the men that they love.

Don't be misled; a romance story this is not. We are too entrenched in the literary hemisphere at this point for that. Dominion is a story of survival and sacrifice and is contemporary literary fiction at its finest. Addie E. Citchens has captured the sentiment and all of the prejudices involved with being a Black woman in the 1980s. Her writing took me there; I became these women. Her style is unique, playing with form and structure, as well as utilizing impressive colloquialisms that honestly took some time to get accustomed to—but it adds a magic that can only be found in the most delicately written and most impactful of novels. Simply put: slam dunk.

Everything presented in this book was a double-edged sword. The struggle and duality that these women experience is intoxicating and disorienting and a complete whirlwind. We witness so much struggle involving all of the characters, and what is the ultimate price that they pay? Will the sacrifices that have been made result in the life they desire?

We float through life—as my words above had before I reined them in—thinking that sacrifice insinuates relinquishing a book we can't buy or foregoing a date night when funds are tight, but do we truly know what it means to sacrifice our quintessential being for another?

If you know that feeling, shoot me a msg and let me know. I'll be over here contemplating my existence.

[None Ofyourbusiness Loves Israel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Mississippi Delta town of Dominion is a place swollen with the Trinity of local life: religion, power, and secrets. Presiding over this landscape is Reverend Sabre Winfrey, Jr., a charismatic, authoritarian preacher at the Seven Seals Missionary Baptist Church.

His is a family built on a precarious foundation, with his wife, Priscilla, a study in humiliation and resentment beneath her Sunday best. Their five sons are meant to embody the Reverend’s axiom of control, conquest, and masculine supremacy.

The youngest, Emanuel, known as Wonderboy, is the handsome, gifted, and adored heir. Priscilla sees him as her redemption; Sabre sees him as his legacy. Yet, Wonder grows into a man increasingly ensnared by the same web of hypocrisy and violence that underwrites the town’s authority.

His trajectory is fated to cross that of Diamond, a young girl who has known more grief and foster homes than birthdays. Their intoxicating romance becomes a ruinous collision of class, morality, and fate.

Dominion maps civic authority and private transgression through an architecture of sermons, holdings, and household reckonings. Its foundation is Reverend Winfrey's philosophy: "an idle mind was the devil's workshop, but an idle hand belonged on a behind."

The novel constructs its power geography through programmatic elements: the Seven Seals appear not just in scripture, but in lists and sermon notes, while Sabre extends his civic reach through his control of WDOZ radio and a chain of barbershops, Sabre Cuts.

Domestic particulars anchor the consequence. Priscilla's careful maintenance of baby photographs with "ledger-like care" and her sharp self-description: "she had no hunched back, just a bad hip." Wonderboy's appeal as an athlete and musician is captured in prose that observes, "His voice was like that. It made people feel like crying in a good way."

The narrative proceeds through a series of carefully staged encounters: an adolescent phone exchange, a truck stop rendezvous on Money Road, and a sanctuary filled with congregational song.

These escalate to moments of raw revelation: a bedroom discovery prompting a girl's vomited "FUCK," a private notebook labeled "Tales of a Joker, by Midas T. Benny," and a civic conflict that goes to the courthouse and the newspaper.

The novel converts childlike ritual into adult accounting. A dog's death is a brutal metaphor for changing alliances when Sam "fell like a log and tumbled onto his side, where he quickly gave up the ghost." Priscilla's practical offering of refuge to Diamond, "I'll keep the baby for you right here, and if Maggie wants to help, she can," marks the shift from piety to pragmatism.

Revelation is staged through minor domestic acts, from a girl's truth-testing counting method to Wonderboy's abrupt, pager-prompted exits.

The novel's engine is scripture. Chapter epigraphs persistently quote Revelation: "Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals?" This prophetic cadence is met by a prose that attends equally to trophies, dishes, and the precise, consequential sound of a truck door closing. The work deploys the minister's invocation of Revelation as both imagery and legal metaphor, making the novel an argument about authority, culpability, and the crushing costs of reputational maintenance.

Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, author Addie E. Citchens' provenance is audible in the text's blues rhythms, liturgical register, and sustained attention to music, sermon, and civic performance.

Dominion documents a ferocious collision between the public pulpit and private appetite, rendering town honor into contested property. Its final reckonings carry civic and moral questions forward like a formal, inescapable summons.

"...Joker prided himself on knowing just about everybody from Parchman to the Boat. He knew it wasn't none of his business and none of his place to judge, especially with a habit that demanded as much flexibility as his did. Shaking his head and chuckling, he made his way back to the concession stand to prepare to smoke. He was sky-high when he came out again, and he peeped something rather curious. One of the men was gone, but the familiar one was on the ground, crying like his dog and his mama had died on the same day..."

[Cydney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love me a book about church politics in the Deep South, but Dominion took that to new heights! It takes place in the early 2000s, and diving into Dominion, Mississippi during this time period feels worlds apart from the world we live in now—but many things still feel the same.

At its core, Dominion is about the prison women live in under a cishetero, patriarchal society. What’s fascinating about Addie E. Citchens’ depiction of this is that the women in this novel are very well-developed, ambitious, and needed, whereas the men are interchangeable and uninteresting, yet eerily similar to one another in their deceptiveness and mediocrity. The similarities of these men connects the women in the story—because despite their plights being the focus here, each woman is male-centered and shrinking themselves for male validation in some way. A mother, a lover, and an adoring society experience the unending cruelty of one young man who is propped as a “Wonderboy” while he embodies the cruelty and passive violence his father enacted on his mother and escalates it to physical harm to others.

The Black Church and dynamic between Black mothers and sons are paralleled here in the way church represents reprieve for Black folks in an unsafe world, and Black motherhood represents an opportunity for mothers to raise sons unlike their terrible husbands. However, both the institution of church and the structure of motherhood often become prisons to women, who are sidelined and cast to the shadows yet maligned when things go wrong. It leads to the next generation limiting themselves to how they can secure men and they don’t tend to aspire for much personally until the man casts them to the shadows as well.

I feel like many parts of this story were masterfully executed, but I did not care for the ending whatsoever. While I can respect what it represented—a loss of agency for someone who took agency from so many others—a number of unsettling things were glossed over that I have more questions about.

This was a phenomenal debut and I can’t wait to read more by Chitchens!

4.25 ⭐️s

[Brandice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dominion is a fictional family drama set in Mississippi about a pastor, his family, and the consequences of their choices. The story is told through two POVs — one from the pastor’s wife and the other from the girlfriend of his highly regarded youngest son.

The characters are all very flawed, far from perfect. I can’t say I liked any of them yet I couldn’t stop reading. I felt like I was in this small Southern town — at its church and in its residents’ homes, watching all their secrets and vices at play within the community.

Dominion was a great debut from Addie Citchens, and I already look forward to her future work.

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dominion is one of those books you can't put down. It's got all the ingredients of an intriguing novel: Southern family, the church, classism, drama, race, and much more. I'm glad that it was told from the perspectives of the two women, Priscilla and Diamond, because you get to see the plot through their eyes, but you also get to see their evolution as characters. Dominion is not just the title of the book, and the name of the town. It also describes the predicament that the women in this book live in. They are dominated by the men in their lives. This book is not just about the low-down men; it's also about how the women who were under these men's domination found power and liberated themselves. A must-read!

[Bobbieshiann · Rating 3 out of 5]

“And I had pressed my tongue against that space even though my mama said a man with a gap in the middle of his mouth is a liar before the living God. And you know what, my mom was right. But I came to discover he was less a lie-dropper than an actual outright lie himself. His very being was a lie.”

The way I was climbing up on this story just for it to fall short at the end. We all know the church can be a place of judgment where people point fingers while ignoring the garbage in their own front yards. In Dominion, we meet multiple characters, but the core focus is on Priscilla, Emanuel, Diamond, and Reverend Sabre J. Winfrey Jr. Priscilla and the Reverend are married, but infidelity mixed with her pill addiction and submissiveness has unraveled some things you just cannot clean up. The story is told from both Priscilla and Diamond’s points of view, as they are the ones constantly being used and manipulated by the men who are supposed to love them. While Diamond dives headfirst into the world of Emanuel, Priscilla is slowly climbing out of hell as she watches the man who preaches words she wrote every Sunday cheat, belittle her, and use God as an outlet to maintain his patriarchal authority.

As the first lady, Priscilla is not only forced to face the reality of her marriage but also who her youngest son really is. Should she protect him as a mother or hold him accountable, knowing that would mean confronting what she and her husband had ignored, as well as the unraveling of her family’s perfect image? Diamond, on the other hand, is an orphan searching for love from a boy who throws around “I love you” like it is only worth ninety-nine cents at the Dollar General. She longs to be needed and loved, as her siblings are scattered in different homes, her oldest brother is on drugs, and she does not truly appreciate her foster mom. When she gets pregnant and believes the baby was conceived in love, she must face the truth: the father of her child is a rapist and a murderer.

Dominion is full of questions and hidden truths, but also leaves many gaps unfilled. The ending offers no real resolution. Even threads like Emanuel’s sexuality surface only to be dropped. This novel had strong potential, but it took too many directions without fully completing any of them.

[Novel Visits · Rating 4 out of 5]

@fsgbooks @macmilan.audio | #partner I’m on a streak of reading books on the shorter side and I found a real winner with 𝗗𝗢𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗜𝗢𝗡 by Addie E. Citchens. Hers is the story of one of the most prominent families in Dominion, MS. At the head of the family is Sabre, pastor of the Seven Seals Baptist Church. He’s loved for his preaching, but also the subject of much well-earned gossip around town. He and his wife Priscilla have five sons, all but the youngest, nicknamed Wonderboy, are out of the house. Priscilla knows all about her husband and self medicates in order to keep looking the other way. That, and her image of perfection are on full view to others. Wonderboy isn’t quite as wonderful as his moniker may imply, though Diamond, a troubled teen, is willing to overlook just about anything to keep his attention.⁣
⁣
𝘋𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯 is primarily told by Priscilla and Diamond, and oh do they evolve as the story progresses. The patriarchy runs deep in this church going community, and the women have just about reached the end of their ropes. The way this debut author presented the men in full light from the very start was brilliant. It was then up to the women around them to finally take their blinders off. I loved the back and forth between Priscilla and Diamond, as well as their slow realizations about their own complicity. This book had a lot to say about secrets and power, and how both can be used to destroy or to save. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨⁣
⁣
*️⃣ I listened to this and the cast of 4 narrators (including Bahni Turpin), was fantastic.⁣

[Tini · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Dominion, Mississippi, secrets are currency, power is gospel, and the truth is ugly as sin.

4.5 stars rounded up.

In the small town of Dominion, Mississippi, Reverend Sabre Winfrey is more than the spiritual leader of Seven Seals Baptist Church - he’s a man who controls businesses, politics, and the moral temperature of his community. His youngest son, Emanuel, nicknamed Wonderboy, is beloved for his voice, his charm, and his athletic prowess. Told largely through the eyes of the women in these men's orbit - Sabre’s wife Priscilla, Seven Seal's "First Lady", and Diamond, a young woman involved with Wonderboy - "Dominion" examines the cracks in a seemingly unshakable family, the secrets a community protects, and the cost of upholding a patriarchal order.

It’s hard to believe this is author Addie E. Citchens’s debut. Her prose is layered and resonant, infused with cultural dialect rooted in Black Southern identity that deepens the story's authenticity. Each chapter contains parts of a sermon that refracts and complicates the events to follow, creating a structure that is as thematically rich as it is narratively effective.

"Dominion" is as much a family drama as it is a study of how systems of power - religious, social, and patriarchal - are maintained and excused. It interrogates the ways small communities close ranks to protect powerful men, even when their actions are morally bankrupt. The novel also explores how the weight of unspoken expectations can corrode individuals and fracture families from within. Watching the inner workings of a Black Southern Baptist church - and the way the town’s identity is intertwined with it - feels both specific and universally resonant. Citchens handles heavy themes such as violence, drug abuse, sex, gender roles, systemic racism, and identity with both nuance and raw intensity. Much is left for the reader to interpret, but the author provides all the tools needed to see the underlying dynamics at work.

A searing, multilayered debut that takes on patriarchy, faith, and identity with unflinching honesty, "Dominion" is as much about the sins we see as the ones we choose to ignore, and the cost of both. Addie E. Citchens has delivered a striking first novel, and her voice is one to watch.

I was lucky to receive both a digital copy of the book as well as a copy of the audiobook. The audiobook adaptation is exceptional, with perfect sound effects and brought to life by an outstanding full cast: Andre Giles, Angel Pean, Bahni Turpin, and Dion Graham. Each narrator embodies their characters with emotional precision, but Angel Pean’s portrayal of Priscilla is particularly memorable.

Many thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the ARCs in exchange for my honest review.

"Dominion" is slated to be released on August 19, 2025.

[Crystal (Melanatedreader) Forte' · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is nutsssss! Now I love a good messy book and this is indeed messy. This was a great debut but I have to bring it down one star for character development and a slight lack of plot because there were not enough trigger warnings for the boy/son (Wonder) to be terrorizing girls the way he does throughout the book. I also felt there wasn’t enough reasoning behind his actions for me to validate his behavior, but it was more so the commentary that I enjoyed the most from the women characters in regard to the church, people and happenings that were vividly discussed in their private thoughts so I can see a lot of people probably marking it down because of how limited the plot was in providing background reasoning. The book was only 200 and something pages but for it to be that short of a read and this is Addie’s first novel she did well especially because it’s hard for people to write Humor through well developed characters especially if the author is not trying to be funny and the humor is written as just a natural part of the character’s nature.

[Shannell Evans Barrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my most anticipated reads of 2025. It did not disappoint! I listened to the audiobook for this one and it was fantastic. The music, the various narrators, the perfect southern accents! As a Black preacher’s kid from the south, so much of this book felt true to life. Good or bad.

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books)]

Hmmm. This started out strong, with lovely writing and strong character work. But one of the main characters, Wonder aka Manny aka Emanuel - the strapping high school son of the hypocritically philandering Baptist preacher and his long-suffering, pill-popping wife - was too thinly drawn to sustain the dark turn his character took a ways in. I put the book down fairly soon after that. Dark plot twists without sufficient character work equals genre fiction - blech, life's too short for that nonsense.

[Jonathan David Pope · Rating 5 out of 5]

For fans of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies this positively unholy Southern family drama will keep you on your toes. A philandering pastor who uses scripture to condemn others and hide his own sins. A First Lady who serves her picture perfect (yet secretly dysfunctional) family faithfully, but at what cost? Their talented son whose is carrying secrets that could destroy them. And an unsuspecting girl who is in love with him. Two women are forced to choose whether to save themselves while in the company of men who are trying to break them down. The audiobook is phenomenal, I felt like I was watching the perfect mix of Greenleaf and Queen Sugar. My only criticism is that the ending felt a bit rushed and there were a few loose ends that weren’t tied up. But an overall great book.

[Belle · Rating 5 out of 5]

SOUTHERN GOTHIC LIT at its finest!

On the surface everyone has their sh*t together but the decaying structure holding it up? Well, the cracks just get wider and deeper like a cracked vase of flowers waiting to leak all over that really nice table.

If you are waiting on Tayari Jones to write another or Tara Stringfellow look no further.

Priscilla? The mother of 5 grown or almost grown boys brings on the snark and wit of all that comes with living in an all male home. Plus being the First Lady of The Seven Seals Church. Yes, indeed! Southern religion is here all dressed up in silk and feathers.

“My man loves his hoes , but he love me too.”

Priscilla may need a little help from time to time with booze and pills and that alone is worth the cost of admission.

“I really wanted to tell her ( or anybody for that matter) that between that batty girl and my brutal boy, I had a sneaking suspicion they were birthing the Antichrist. But you just couldn’t lay that kind of thing on people.”

The cast of women characters around her? Just the perfect community of women supporting one another on their good days and speaking their full minds on their other days.

And now I will let you read how this all comes together for yourself.

And thoughts on Bob Ross:

“He had been with me all my life, and you had to believe a person who used the word thickets and could sweep a brush of titanium white and Prussian blue across a canvas and make you feel frost when it was ninety degrees outside. I even believed in his fro although mama told us it was a perm. Best of all, he had the calmest voice I had ever heard come out of a man, and it felt real, not because he was perfect but because you knew that the soft blue shirt with its rolled up sleeves had the worn in smell of cigarettes.”

[DeannaReadsandSleeps · Rating 4 out of 5]

oh this was incredible, actually.

[Darcy J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Black church culture. Teenagers. Various Toxic relationships.
Southern. Dark. Very dark...and I laughed quite a few times as I was reading. And when I wasn't laughing, I was soaking in every word because I didn't want to put it down.
Honestly, I could've read 100-150 more pages.

The synopsis will tell you that the story is about the Seven Seals Church Pastor, Sabre Winfrey and his son Emmanuel
"Wonderboy" Winfrey and it is! But I took something else from this story. The novel gives us two POVs from the First Lady, Priscilla Winfrey and seventeen-year-old Diamond, both are flawed and resilient and they took me on an unforgettable ride. Priscilla might be one of my new favorite comedic FMC's. For some reason I can see her being friends with Raya from Call Me Mrs. Taylor. Don't ask me to explain, it makes sense to me. 😂

Diamond. Oh, Diamond. She has a story that I wouldn't mind reading in a spinoff. She was the highlight for me despite everything going on in the background with her boyfriend Emmanuel was a wile Preacher's Kid who needed help and a reality check. But things often get swept under the rug if it's too embarrassing for the family...

I love a coming of age story but Diamond's was so complex.
To me, she was a dreamer. A young girl who had a very rough upbringing and was still hopeful enough to desire love. She found that love with Emmanuel. Diamond saw what being with someone like Emmanuel could be through Priscilla's role in the church as well as her story once they got to know each other and she received an unexpected example from let's say...a woman on the side. Diamond and her rose colored glasses needed a wake up call. It's beautiful to be a dreamer and I hope she never loses that passion, but the dreams are even better when you know who holds the power. 😉
✨Family Secrets
✨Infedelity
✨Religious Hypocrisy
✨Violence/SA

[Kate O'Shea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dominion is the nominal fiefdom of the Winfrey family. Sabre, the patriarch, is the reverend at Seven Seals Missionary Baptist Church where he concocts his sermons, does business and entertains.

His wife, Priscilla, is known as the First Lady. She is all too aware of Sabre's weakness for other women but she knows he will not leave her or their five boys.

Her most favoured child is Emanuel (aka Wonder/Wonderboy) who can do no wrong even though he is tempted by all manner of young girls. And right now, Wonder has his eye on Diamond Bailey, an orphan fostered by Maggie. Diamond has lost touch with her siblings and is alone and vulnerable, apart from Maggie. She is all too ready to be caught up by Wonder's smile and dazzling personality. But does she really know who he is?

As the book unfolds we learn more about Wonder's life and as his mother begins to suspect there is something wrong with her child, Wonder and Diamond take reckless steps to escape the inevitable consequences of his actions.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was caught up immediately by Diamond's vulnerability and need for love and affection. Wonder is a marvellously sly character who I'm sure we've all met some version of along the way.

Great story, great writing. I definitely recommend Dominion.

Dominion is the debut novel of Addie E Citchens and I look forward to more by this author.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Farrar, Strauss and Giroux for the advance review copy

[Riley Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

[TW: Animal death, Rape, Sexual Assault, Violence, Death, Drug Abuse]

Dominion is a stunning debut novel that weaves together drama, brutality, humor, and a profound exploration of the human condition, all while detailing the fall from grace of the Winfrey family. Dominion is told through three distinct perspectives – through Priscilla, “Wonderboy’s” mother, through Diamond – Wonderboy’s lover, and an intentionally ambiguous viewpoint.

At the heart of the narrative is Wonderboy, the perfect picture of a pastors son – handsome, intelligent, sporty, friendly, and always respectful of the women around him. His family, his friends, and both Priscilla and Diamond believe he is the definition of perfect. The majority of the school would willingly throw themselves at Wonderboy, Diamond included. However, as revealed early in the prologue, they both like each other, sneaking wistful glances at each other during the Sunday sermon.

“I had heard so many things about what that child did with them lips. Merciful father, say it aint that one. Manny was special, my baby –I couldn’t bear to have him turned out by some wordly hussy.”

Of course, Priscilla wasn’t fond of Diamond, both due to her “stripper” name and her poor upbringing. Diamond didn’t grow up with the comfort of a stable home, had to scrounge for food, and faced childhood abandonment by both parents, a sharp contrast to the affluent Winfrey family. Naturally, Diamond is drawn to him regardless.

What then is detailed is the heart wrenching drama of a woman who loses herself, her sense of identity, and her passions all to a man who may not be as flawless as he seems.

“They weren’t much younger than me, but I felt ages older, maybe light-years. Old enough that a future I wasn’t ready for was staring me in the face.”

Priscilla’s inner turmoil runs parallel to Diamond, her struggles within marriage and the actions of her husband. Watching the slow reveal and descent into both knowledge and acceptance only made the conversations she had all the more raw, touching, and uncomfortable.

“On the evening of February 14, 1976, my husband explained to me that because Eve ate the apple, I would have to eat the snake. I knew in the scheme of things, this probably wasn’t so bad a thing to do, especially since this was my husband, but try as I could, I could not get comfortable with it.”

Each women directly faced different challenges from their families and their lovers. They also watched the patriarchy play – with haunting quotes such as these, marking how subservience has dominated not only society, but religion as well.

“To woman he gave a womb, and to man he gave dominion-that’s what I teach my boys because that’s what the living Word say.”

Dominion is an unforgettable read, although something I wouldn’t typically pick up off a shelf. Citchens has a stunning debut novel that masters southern diction, where dialogue flows effortlessly. Not only is it an enjoyable read, it does excellent work analyzing the human condition and the consequences of the patriarchy.

[Books Amongst Friends · Rating 3 out of 5]

Narration/Audiobook: 4/5
Overall Story: 3/5

It’s not very often I feel that a book needs to be longer, but in this case Dominion could’ve used another 100 pages. The prose is captivating and the story has lot of weight and potential, but I never felt as connected to the characters as I should have. Especially with this being a story focused on the expectations and fallout of southern black family, community, and church! This a theme/topic I’ll always be interested in. In Dominion we experience this more specifically in discussing the extent to which the role misogyny plays in those environments.

While the book does this, there was still something missing. For instance, Diamond being one of the main voices we hear from felt strange. I definitely understood the purpose of her character juxtapose Manny’s mother, as he is positioned similarly to his father. But I never felt the connection between the two of them was established enough. While she has her own traumatic background and scarring encounters with men, it sadly seemed as though she was just an obsessed lover of Manny’s. Too much of her story was implied and didn’t deeply hit the way I desired.

This is partially why I think the story would’ve been better told from primarily the male characters’ perspectives. I too often see authors shy away from making their male “villains” extremely unlikeable and terrible unless the story is told via the victim, or most often, the women that encounter or protect them. Because we’ve seen this theme done before through that lens, it would’ve been interesting to predominantly hear from the psyche of Manny and his father. As is, there’s too many moments of the story that don’t contribute to its end, ultimately making the shift and reveal feel abrupt and unfinished.

With this being such a short read, I’d still recommend it! The concept and premise is one worth discussing and this could make a really strong book club pick. Initially, it was engrossing hearing the mom talk about all the gossip and behind the scenes of being the First Lady of the church. It felt like getting all the tea from my godmother and hooked me. It just lost me a little along the way, but I look forward to more from this author.

Also**The audiobook was enjoyable and added a texture and presence to the story that I would’ve missed just reading it. While overall it didn’t knock me off my feet, it was still executed beautifully.

Huge thanks to Netgalley and the publisher FSG for this ALC. All thoughts are my own.