"Soul Kiss, an eloquent first novel from well-known African-American
playwright Shay Youngblood, opens as seven-year-old Mariah Kim Santos is
unceremoniously and suddenly deposited by her mother to live with two
maiden aunts in rural Georgia. The only parting words from Mama are "Mama
loves you." Mariah is then directed to wait for her mother's return. Years
pass and Mariah's mother doesn't come back. Mariah forms a unique and
loving relationship with her surrogate parents. As she passes into
womanhood, Mariah feels emotionally complete only with other women; when
she learns for the first time about the existence of her father, the
central questions of her familial and sexual identities rise, and she
seeks out that father, a painter living in Los Angeles. There she makes
the disorienting simultaneous discovery of new areas of explosive erotic
passion and family love." --
Amazon.com
Black Girl in Paris
In her critically acclaimed new novel, Shay Youngblood chronicles the
Parisian odyssey of a young African- American woman retracing the
footsteps of the literary legends who inspired her.
