Tempest Rising Paperback - 1999

Summary

First line

THE grand stone Victorian tried not to show off, even though it survived that sudden March storm, stood tough while the roof caved in on the house next door, and the front palladian blew out in the one across the street; a half-dead pin oak died for real and crashed through the attic of the house on the corner.

From the rear cover

Set in west Philadelphia in the early sixties, Tempest Rising tells the story of three sisters, Bliss, Victoria, and Shern, budding adolescents raised in a world of financial privilege among the upper-black-class. But their lives quickly unravel as their father's lucrative catering business collapses. He disappears and is presumed dead, and their mother suffers an apparent breakdown. The girls are wrenched from their mother, and as the novel opens they are living in foster care in a working-class neighborhood in the home of Mae, a politically connected card shark. Though Mae is filled with syrupy names like "pudding" and "doll face" for the foster girls, she is abusive to her own child, Ramona, a twenty-something stunning beauty. As Ramona struggles with Mae's abuse and her own hatred for the foster children, she also tries to keep at bay a powerful attraction she has for her boyfriend's father.

Diane McKinney-Whetstone richly evokes the early 1960s in west Philadelphia in this spicy story of loss and healing, redemption and love.

Media reviews

Citations

• Booklist, 02/15/2000, Page 1096