Running to Fall: a Novel

by Kalisha Buckhanon

Tragedy and Victor Powell have moved to the desirable but dark Grayson Glens enclave of dream homes just outside of Chicago. Stressed urbanites, they’ve got to live large in real life to stay large online. With only a few blacks in their elite gated community, they settle in but never quite feel at home. Then, a missing young black woman floats up in the Grayson River.

Is the spirit of the mysterious scarlet-lettered woman, Raven McCoy, haunting Grayson during the pandemic?

Tragedy, haunted by her own difficult checkered past versus Victor’s sterling history, thinks so. The pressure to manage his image for profit drives her to drink, even when his trying teen daughter visits. But Victor’s ex-wife, the Grayson gossip and a female detective all close in on Tragedy’s unraveling life. Then Tragedy spirals into addiction, past secrets and the local women’s fight for justice for a woman.

Genres: Mystery Thriller, Fiction, Mystery

322 pages, Hardcover

Published September 1, 2022

About the author

Kalisha is the author of the novels UPSTATE, CONCEPTION, SOLEMN and SPEAKING OF SUMMER: a book pick of Essence, O Magazine, TIME, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, Cosmo, Buzzfeed, Lit Hub and more. Her stories and essays are published in Fiction, CrimeReads, Fiction International, Oxford American, Black Renaissance Noire, Michigan Quarterly Review, pluck! and more. She is also seen on ID, BET and TV-One true crime shows as an expert. Her work is honored by the American Library Association, National Book Foundation, Audie Awards, Hurston-Wright Foundation, Illinois Arts Council, Friends of American Writers and more. She has English degrees from University of Chicago and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from The New School in New York City.

Reviews

[Francis M. Prensa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book book was a page turner, it touched on a lot of what’s going on, and I will leave that right there, lol. Some topics can be triggering, but it’s done so well. The book was a slow burn though but don’t give up this one is a gem.

[AALBC.com (Troy Johnson) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Running to Fall is a layered, nuanced, look at alcoholism and how it can affect the lives of an upper-middle-class family. The story is wrapped in a murder mystery making it even more compelling Running to Fall is so good I decided to publish it!

[Colleen Yerton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is hard to rate. Things I enjoyed - the realistic portrayal of poverty, foster care in the USA, how race impacts police follow-up on missing young women, and the impact of trauma along with alcoholism. Things I did not like - the constant switching from 3rd person to 1st person POV (super hard to follow since I listened to the audiobook), not to mention these characters were really shitty. The ending was sooooo anticlimactic it felt like a let down. This one had so much potential but just missed the mark. Rating 3 stars but it’s more a 2…

[Carole Burns · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very American story of trauma and survival. Compellingly paced, inventively written, the novel tells the story of a young woman who renames herself from “Hope” to “Tragedy” - a flawed, fascinating, magnificent character. I sometimes find flawed characters simply irritating, but not this one - she’s entirely sympathetic. Tragedy becomes obsessed a young Black woman who is found dead in the mostly white Chicago suburb where she and her successful husband have moved as a reflection of their success and a desire for even more. The cost of this is borne mostly by Tragedy, and I was so engaged as she unraveled the complicated knots of her situation that I had to leave this novel home when I went to write - otherwise I’d get nothing else done.

I’ve stopped giving starred reviews to books on GoodReads, except when I think a book here looks under-related. “Running to Fall” is terrific.

[Angelator · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. There were many sentences in this book that did not make sense or did not follow common English. It was also kind of all over the place. There were a lot of contemporary themes in the book related to race and what's going on in the country today which is a riveting concept but the book itself was lacking and oftentimes, I found myself rereading segments because they did not make sense.

[Brianna Navarro · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man, I really wanted to like this book. The plot is great conceptually, the characters are interesting, the cover is STUNNING… but yikes, this was just not good. As someone else put it, this book reads like a drunk person wrote it. Half the sentences make no sense, it contradicts itself from page to page, it switches back and forth from first to third person, in between slow plot progression there’s massive sections of info dump. It just did not work for me. I really struggled getting through this one.

[Latoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find each of Kalisha Buckhanon’s books to be unique, and captivating in their own way. This book was no different. A story about a woman with a past riddled with alcoholism, foster care, and tragedy - so much so that changed her name to Tragedy! The book explores so many themes, black girls missing, human trafficking, adultery, substance abuse, the color divide in metro Chicago, etc.

[Alexis Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The way I feel about this fits magically with the plot of this story. The writing style was confusing and read as if a drunk person wrote it. And the ending felt forced and unfinished like the memoir the protagonist was writing.

[Ivy Pittman-Outen · Rating 3 out of 5]

While parts of the story are page turners, pulling in the reader, the obvious grammatical errors and incomplete sentence structures, is disappointing.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review coming soon in Quaci Press!

[Mica Weaver · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Jaclyn Hillis]

“My name is Tragedy Powell, and I’m an alcoholic.”

I went in completely blind, and I have to say this book still surprised me. The cover is stunning, yet the story underneath is very complex. I loved the writing style; it was literary fiction with a hint of mystery. The story was glimpse into what it’s like to be Black in ritzy suburbia. And the author gives us a truthful look into the lives of women who drink to survive, or to just to cope with their trauma. I won’t say that the outcome surprised me, but I appreciated the journey.

This one deserves more love. ❤️

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CW: murder, death, car accident, infidelity, addiction, alcoholism, kidnapping, mention of a fire, pandemic…

[Lynn Lok-Payne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book with some twist, turns, and page turners you won't want to miss!