Genre: Fiction

TIME WILL REVEAL, PART 1

Author: Black Coffee

Ebony Brown is discovering that life doesn't always work out the way that she'd like. When her grandmother falls ill, her family decides to send her to Houston in order to help take care of her. For Ebony, this is a drastic change. She'll have to leave her home, her crew, and Ajay, the boy she's come to love very much. It's a difficult decision, and Ebony seems to have no choice in the matter.

But the family's plans are delayed when several unexpected, and somewhat upsetting, events take place. Ebony finds herself in trouble with her mother while still attempting to hold together the relationship she's established with Ajay. When she finally does move to Houston, things only become more difficult when a boy in her class begins to pursue her against her will. But through it all, Ebony remains intensely stubborn and dedicated to what she believes in.

Time Will Reveal is, in some ways, a coming of age novel. It arranges a series of life lessons that the main character, Ebony, must go through in order to better understand herself and the people around her. She's still very much a child, and in this volume, she doesn't quite reach an adult mentality, but she's on her way toward it, stumbling through as best she can, and taking each step one at a time.

Of course, Ebony isn't the only one to learn something from the troubles that arise, and it will be interesting to see how the end of volume one changes the perceptions of the other characters in volume two. There are so many potential outcomes that theorizing becomes futile, and one only hopes that the story will end satisfactorily for Ebony and her loved ones.

The majority of the dialogue in this book is written in a fairly thick dialect. Whether readers will find it somewhat dense, or whether they'll find it more authentic to the story, is really a matter of personal preference. If anything, the greatest hurdle in the novel's styling is the lack of dialogue formatting. Rather than separating each speaker, the dialogue runs together in paragraph form, sometimes making it difficult to pick out one line from another. This can occasionally cause confusion, though once the reader becomes more accustomed to it, it becomes less of a problem.

Overall, the story is entertaining and often emotional. Ebony is presented as both vulnerable and innocent as well as capable and tough when situations require it. Likewise, the other characters have a similarly rounded aspect to them, hard on one side and soft on the other; capable in some areas of their lives and still learning in others. Thus, the interaction between the characters is interesting and very much like a real family unit.

Readers who enjoy this book will definitely want to return for part two in order to discover how Ebony handles her next set of obstacles.

Reviewer: C. Noël Rivera, Allbooks Reviews

Time Will Reveal, Part 1, may be purchased from AuthorHouse.com and Amazon.com

Title: Time Will Reveal, part 1

Author: Black Coffee

Publisher: AuthorHouse

ISBN: 978-1420845426

Pages: 250

Price: $16.95 Nov. 2007

Genre: Fiction

by Black Coffee

Following directly from the first volume of Time Will Reveal, Part Two picks up with Ebony still at the hospital after Ray's attack. Friends and family gather around her, determined to right the wrong that was done and support Ebony through her trials as she deals with this traumatic event. Soon, however, she finds that she was far more deeply affected by the incident than she initially believed and, though she finally returns home, it takes time to overcome the memories of what happened to her.

But Ebony isn't the only one going through trying times. The other girls from her crew are having their own difficulties, and several seemingly random attacks on other crewmembers cause deep upset for everyone. For Ebony it becomes more and more apparent how difficult life can be and, sometimes, how unfair.

Most notable among Ebony's personal troubles is her relationship with Ajay. Though it's clear that they both care for each other deeply, his behavior is troublesome, both to Ebony and to the reader. He appears to subscribe to a double standard in which he is capable of doing however he pleases, but Ebony is kept on a tight leash and is answerable to far more rules than he. How Ebony deals with this and the outcome of their relationship is one of the more intriguing points of the story.

Time Will Reveal is a story about growth and relationships within a circle of friends. Through the troubles, the arguments, the happy times, and the sad, the story follows Ebony and her crew, watching them all grow into adults and deal with the lives they've created for themselves. But most of all it deals with their interactions among each other; love and friendship, abuse and distress, all within the confines of their tight-knit group. As in any real family unit, there are times when the situation seems impossible to endure or even to understand and, in the end, the only ones capable of bringing things around again are the very people involved.

Those who enjoyed reading Part One will certainly be interested in following up with the final volume of the story. Like the first volume, it has many intense moments and emotional scenes sure to keep the reader wondering what will happen next. Reviewer: C. Noël Rivera, Allbooks Review

Time Will Reveal, Part 2, may be purchased from iUniverse.com and Amazon.com

Title: Time Will Reveal, part 2

Author: Black Coffee

Publisher: iUniverse

ISBN: 978-0595462537

Pages: 583

Price: $29.95

Dec. 2007